Columbus is Going to Need Sunglasses Soon.

There's never enough time to do it right first time but there's always enough time to go back and do it again.


How is Public Enemies doing at the box office you ask? Not bad, not great. Universal is the only major studio that does not have a $100M film yet this year and PE has a good chance to break into the century club and is at $79.8M domestic.

The BIG news was Universal's Bruno. It crashed and burned dropping a "disturbing" 73% which is the worst 2nd weekend of any film this year.

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Photo alert. Seriously - how hard is it to take pretty photos of flowers! It's like saying "here is a sexy swimsuit model, can you TRY to take a nice photo?"

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I've been saying this for a few years and I'll repeat it. I'm pretty optimistic about the direction Columbus is going and I'll be the first to say that so far I totally approve of how new Mayor Bob Link is preforming (not that anybody cares what I think but . . . ). I've been in a few meetings and have heard other reports and dare say "I was wrong?"

The City Council of Columbus seems to have it's act together also and it also seems that everyone is interested in the downtown situation and how can we make it better.

I was at the CDA (Columbus Development Authority) meeting last night and a few things sort of perked me up a little (BTW - this is an open meeting and I urge others to attend if you are interested in Columbus.

When playing SIM City you zone areas and raise and lower taxes and all the little City things to make the SIMs happy. But the one thing is you need business to bring people. Built it and they will come. Could this be backwards?

Sort of, maybe a little.

The Mayor and some CDA people visited Burlington IA which has a population of about 25,000 and has lost almost 6% of it's population since 2000 and has an unemployment rate of 7% (compared to 3.3% for Columbus).

Burlington ripped down 33% of their downtown and one of the BIG redevelopments was a 150 unit upscale apartment building right next to the downtown.

Now you are going to say that you hope THAT does not happen in Columbus and I agree. Columbus has people that live near the downtown already. But my point is that those people that live in those apartments in Burlington (most unites are occupied) have spurred downtown growth naturally.

Instead of finding business and THEN getting people to the business. They brought in people and business followed.

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OK - the above got a little boring so I erased it.

BTW - Columbus is really making some waves in magazines of late. The biggest "green" magazine will have an article on Columbus. Corporate World (I know we all can not wait for that one to arrive in the mail) has an article about Columbus and how it is becoming pro-business and RV World had the following story that has already brought travelers to the town.


The Public Enemies Celebration is this Saturday and hopefully this is the beginning of a yearly event. If it is it is just another reason the Wisconsin movie incentive helped a town.

Without Public Enemies this event would not be happening and people would still be inside with their windows closed not talking to each other. Now we have a community that seems to me has turned a corner and is heading in the right direction.

Get your sunglasses - the future is bright if we don't let it slip through our fingers.

Rod