SWOT Recap: School District Performance

One of the issues that most people agree on when discussing Amsterdam’s weaknesses is our school system. The lagging performance of the school district (ranked 80th out of 85th in last year’s Business Review School Report) has been cited as one of the major reasons that families with children pass on Amsterdam. It’s clear that Amsterdam has [...]

Grumpy Old Man on Internet News

I’m oooooold! And I’m not happy! And I don’t like things now compared to the way they used to be. All this progress — phooey! In my day, we didn’t have these blogs and facebooks and twitters. We got all our local news from the newspaper. You’d have to wait a whole day, or sometimes two, [...]

A Informative Look at the Corinth Dissolution Referendum

Voters in the Village of Corinth voted 338-209 last Tuesday against dissolving the village and being absorbed by the town. Doing some reading on the subject, I’ve found some very interesting points to share which should help us better understand the complexity of the dissolution/consolidation process and how it could possibly play out in our [...]

SWOT Recap: Housing

Thanks to everyone who submitted responses to the S.W.O.T. analysis thread. I’ve tried to look for some common ground among these posts, and I see a couple of areas where people’s comments overlap. One of the issues that came up in both the strengths and weaknesses category was our housing stock. I’ve always agreed with [...]

Thoughts on Possible Chamber Merger

It seems that the Montgomery and Fulton County Chambers of Commerce are giving serious consideration to merging. I have mixed feelings on the idea, depending on how I look at the role of the COC in the business community. On one hand, I think a merger could very well benefit some types of businesses. My [...]