EDITORIAL
Nobody’s going to pretend the past couple of years have been anything but rough for our community. After all, Rockdale has lost its largest industry and its hospital.
But. Just as it would be disingenuous to pretend those events didn’t happen, it would be the same to ignore a number of very positive occurrences in our town, some recent, some over a period of months, all of them reported here.
Some have yet to happen, some are out-of-sight but are happening, and some are by now so familiar to us that we may have already gotten used to them.
Here goes:
• Our new police department is just about complete. For everyone who has been worried—justifiably—about out town needing a nice-looking “anchor” for the eastern part of downtown, we’ve got it.
• Bitmain is a reality. It has stocked old potrooms at Alcoa with cryptocurrency-mining computers and anticipates beginning whatever the heck it does later this spring.
• Work on the Valero pipeline is going full steam north and west of Rockdale, providing a much-needed boost for Milam County sales tax.
• According to County Judge Steve Young, another, even larger, pipeline has committed to come through Milam, almost on the same route, which will also provide a sales tax boost.
• Oil play has picked up considerably in the Gause area with the number of new wells to be drilled estimated to eventually be in the hundreds.
• It’s not here yet but officials have been told there is considerably interest in establishing solar farms in the Rockdale area. Solar is going to be a growing industry in upcoming years (see page 1A) and everyone who has ever stepped outdoors in July knows Milam County is a perfect place for it.
• Rockdale has a clinic again and, even though we thought it would have happened by now, negotiations continue with a major health care provider to re-open a clinic facility at the former Richards Memorial Hospital.
• There’s lots of work going on at the new Rockdale Estates & Rehabilitation Nursing Home in adjacent to the intermediate campus. It’s going to be open later this year and it will employ 100 persons. Most welcome.
• There’s substantial street renovation going on almost the entire length of San Gabriel Street. Of course residents of that street are ready for it to be complete.
• This is dependent on a lot of factors but don’t forget there is a substantial sidewalk program planned for a block downtown that will make it a town showpiece. US 79 will also be improved through downtown and beyond and a first-ever sidewalk is going to be installed on the south side of City Hall heading westward.
Is there still a lot to do in our town? Yes. Should we be looking forward to all these items on the “good list?” Yes, indeed.—M.B.
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