Welcome to RCT-Responsible Citizens for Tiffin.

[rctwe...@gmail.com]

With this blog, Citizens for Tiffin now have a public voice for the
purpose of guiding each other and our city government to act
responsibly. Why is this needed? So we can all in our own way make
Tiffin a better place to live for our neighbors, our families, our
employees and ourselves. This is what the Tiffin City I know can
do...one citizen at a time...and one key issue at a time.

If you've been paying attention the last 40 years, Tiffin has slowly
given up its moral center and has replaced it with a government that
is run (with a few notable exceptions) by local high profile business
interests; non-profit tax-exempt institutions that boast of their
"risk all to gain all" goals; a University that acts more like a very
aggressive real-estate development corporation than a center for
intellectual and academic excellence; and city officials who are
publicly told by local businessmen how and when to act in their
official capacity. Only they know what they are being told to do in
private meetings such as that lunch or dinner that was paid for by
Tiffin's version of a lobbyist.

In about the last five (5) years Tiffin continues its net loss of jobs
with factories and other business closings. During the same time,
Tiffin has lost about five (5) percent of its population. If you
interview former citizens who have left Tiffin, many will tell you
some version of a swan song..."Tiffin is dying and I will have to seek
my fortune elsewhere"; "I can't stay because it's too hard to support
my family"; or, in some cases, "I feel like Tiffin intended to run-me-
out-of-dodge." For many regular citizens who are staying in Tiffin,
they quietly suffer through a depressed economic environment only
because they do not wish to leave family...perhaps an elderly
parent...or a sick child for whom they have achieved some degree of
support through a hodge-podge of social services.

Yet, the few citizens who are prospering, or getting rich because of
their business interests, are the exception that proves the rule.
Many are struggling in some way...and that IS the rule. It doesn't
help the independent Tiffin Citizen when some who have prospered
economically have done so with reckless disregard of other citizen's
rights. This probably is the number one cause of Tiffin's demise.
Who WANTS to live in a town where they aren't made to feel welcome?
Who want's to know that they are a citizen of a town who
systematically abuses citizens of their livelyhood or their homes?

So, the only way the Citizens of Tiffin can pull our city out of the
economic spiral of depression is for each of us to do the right
thing. None of us really believes the government can fix any
problems,,,because they often ARE the problem.