by Randolph Voller

I recently received my first COVID-19 vaccination shot at the Chatham County Agricultural and Conference Center in Pittsboro. The operation by StarMed in cooperation with our Health Department ran like clockwork. It is a credit to what can be accomplished with public/private partnerships and made me ponder how important our priorities are on local, state, and federal levels.
Priorities that ultimately come down to votes and the allocation of resources.
Long before he became our President, Joe Biden told a crowd, “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”
When our County leaders greenlighted the construction of the Chatham County Agricultural and Conference Center years ago, they put into action what we value and because of that investment our community has an attractive and safe public place to gather.
When President Biden’s quote is overlayed with this famous quote from author, reformer and 1934 California gubernatorial candidate Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it,” it becomes easier to understand our world in 2021.
Look at what our leaders fund, what they build, and who is being paid before, during, and after the sausage making.
This reality is why we still have large sections of our State without broadband and why hundreds of
thousands of North Carolineans are without access to healthcare that a simple expansion of Medicaid would accomplish.
I have hope that perhaps 2021 will be the inflection point.

Randolph Voller, Publisher