It’s one thing to pay lip service to the idea of bringing fresh thinking to City Hall. It’s quite another to demonstrate that open-mindedness, the curiosity, the creativity, and the ability to ask tough questions. If you’ve visited my website then you know I have a very clear stand on the issues that is very much NOT status quo. We simply cannot remain stuck in the last century and expect things to be better than they are today.

Here is one exciting example of innovative thinking springing up in our community today:

Thanks to Lon Matejczyk of the Colorado Springs Business Journal for bringing this to our attention. Bernard Sandoval of Sandia Advertising and Marketing has created a logo that local businesses can display as part of a grass roots effort to encourage keeping more of our dollars in our local economy.

That is one of the basic tenets of the localization strategy of economic development I’m promoting. Sandoval apparently has suggested a great tag line: The Buck Stops Here. I misread it and thought it was, The Buck Stays Here. Serendipitous slip, I think. Perhaps I can convince Bernard to use the word “stays,” because that will really communicate the benefits of buying local. The buck doesn’t stop at a local business when you purchase a product or service there. The buck is more likely to be spent here, which is good for our local economy.

Buy Local campaigns are just one example of productive, inexpensive, non-destructive economic development. Check out Boulder’s version here, or the San Francisco Bay area’s here. If you want to dig deeper, look for the discussion and links in my platform on a healthy local economy.