By Vanesa Brashier, editor and publisher of Bluebonnet News
Most days, when I finish an article and hit publish, I move on. There is always another story to write, another phone call to make or another interview waiting.
I generally do not go back and follow the comments on social media unless the story involves a particularly controversial issue or I suspect there might be a problem. Occasionally, someone tags me in a comment, and I try to look at those when they pop up. Some deserve a response. Others do not. Sometimes I just forget to respond.
I see enough to have noticed something that I know is not unique to Liberty County: No matter what the news is, somebody can usually find something wrong with it.
Announce a new subdivision in Liberty County, and one of the first comments will almost certainly be about not wanting any more people to move here. I understand that concern more than people might think. I am all for preserving the rural character of our communities. I live on what amounts to a family compound, with 28 members of my family living in eight different houses. I am about as rural as a person can get. ‘Going to town’ is an actual phrase in my vocabulary.
But growth is not always somebody moving here from somewhere else. Some of those new houses may be purchased by people who already live in Liberty County. Maybe it is a young couple who grew up here and would like to buy their first home without leaving the community where their families live. New housing gives them that opportunity.
There is another side to residential growth that we sometimes overlook. New home starts, rooftops and population numbers are among the things businesses consider when deciding where to open their next location. The same people asking why we cannot get a particular restaurant, retailer or service may not realize that having enough households to support that business can help put Liberty County on its radar.
That does not mean we have to welcome every development or stop caring about preserving what makes our communities special. Growth should be thoughtful. Infrastructure needs to keep pace with it, and residents have every right to ask questions about what a development will mean for roads, drainage, schools and other services.
We can want to preserve our rural way of life while recognizing that some growth is inevitable — and that some of it can bring opportunities we desire.
Write about a city trying to recapture sales tax revenue that is currently being lost so it can better cover operating expenses without dipping into reserves or putting more pressure on property taxpayers, and someone will call for the mayor to be fired. Never mind that mayors in Liberty County are elected, not hired, and serve without a salary.
Then there are new businesses. Announce that a new business is opening, bringing investment and perhaps a few more jobs to the community, and somebody will inevitably ask why we could not get some other business instead.
I understand that one because I have my own wish-list business. If anyone from PetSmart or Petco happens to be reading this, Liberty County is lovely this time of year. Just ignore the heat. It is temporary. Mostly.
When my daughter Alexia was 13, I decided it would be a great idea to give her a bearded dragon. That was my first mistake. What I failed to consider was that 13-year-olds sometimes change their minds about pets. She quickly lost interest in his upkeep, which meant that I got stuck taking care of it after growing attached to him.
The reptile I gave my daughter became my reptile, and that gift turned into a lifetime commitment for me — his lifetime, hopefully, not mine.
Keeping a bearded dragon means buying live crickets and worms on an almost weekly basis. It also means handling live crickets and worms, something I do not remember factoring into my decision when I brought home that cute little lizard.
Because we do not have a large pet store nearby that regularly carries what I need, keeping him fed means driving to a larger metro area to stock up. So believe me, I understand having a particular business on your wish list.
But here is the irony: Some of the residential growth we complain about may eventually help us attract the businesses we keep saying we want.
In the meantime, if another type of business announces it is coming to Liberty County tomorrow, I am not going to complain that it is not PetSmart or Petco. I am not particularly fond of Waffle House, but I am thankful they are coming to Liberty because some of my readers do like Waffle House. I am thankful that someone looked at one of our communities, decided this was a place where they wanted to do business, and invested their money.
That is still something worth welcoming. I will just keep driving for crickets.
I do not think Liberty County is unusually negative. Spend any amount of time around social media and you will see the same behavior in communities everywhere. I think social media has simply made negativity easier.
There was a time when saying something harsh about another person required a little more effort. You had to say it to someone’s face, pick up a telephone or at least put pen to paper. Today, we can type a comment in a few seconds, hit a button and move on with our day.
We do not see the face of the person on the receiving end. We may not know all the facts. Sometimes we have not even read beyond the headline. I am guilty of this myself when it comes to national news.
Usually there is not much of an immediate consequence to our posts, but I wonder if there is a larger consequence that we do not think about very often.
I was talking to a representative from a home builder yesterday when the idea for this column came up. She recalled an article that was posted about a development two years ago and how every comment under the article was negative. I have to wonder if a developer’s research of a community includes community Facebook pages.
What message are we projecting about our own communities? What happens when we continually run down the very communities where we live?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting better for Liberty County. I do. I want good roads. I am tired of dodging potholes on the county road where my youngest grandson lives. I want responsible government. I get particularly frustrated when government entities settle frivolous lawsuits filed against them. I want elected officials to spend our tax dollars wisely. I want thoughtful development, successful local businesses, safe neighborhoods and opportunities for our children and grandchildren.
Wanting those things means asking questions sometimes. That is part of my job.
Bluebonnet News is not going to stop reporting on problems because the stories are not positive. When something is wrong, I have to tell you about it. When government officials make decisions, residents have every right to question those decisions.
Sometimes the people raising concerns in the comment section have a very good point. Sometimes a comment causes me to take another look at an issue or ask another question. Criticism is not necessarily unfair.
I say all of this to say that there are enough genuine problems in this world. We do not have to manufacture new ones out of every piece of good news.
While writing this article, my mind keeps coming back to Philippians 4:8:
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
I love that the verse begins with “whatever is true.”
It is not telling us to pretend everything is wonderful when it is not. It is not asking us to overlook wrongdoing, ignore problems or put on rose-colored glasses. I believe we should strive to see a glass as half full instead of half empty.
We spend so much time talking about what we want our communities to become that sometimes we overlook what is already good about them. Liberty County is not perfect. Neither are our communities of Liberty, Dayton, Cleveland, Daisetta, Hardin, Plum Grove, Raywood, Ames, Moss Hill, Devers, Romayor, or any of the other communities that make up this place we call home.
But they are ours. We can want them to grow and improve without tearing them down along the way. We can ask questions without assuming the worst. We can disagree without being unkind.
And when something good happens, we do not have to immediately start looking for what is wrong with it.
Sometimes it is okay to simply say, “That is good news.”