Youngstown: It's worth the commute, says Colorado businessman

EDITOR:
I am writing this letter while sitting on an airplane flying from my home in Ohio to my office just outside Denver, Colo. Yes, I commute between Ohio and Denver for work. While sitting here, I just read an article that notes that Youngstown ranks 9th in the United States for crime and that city and police officials dispute the facts of the story. How sad on both counts.
Sad that Youngstown is in that position and that officials feel they have to dispute the story rather than confront the issues. Yet neither of these points shows the whole picture of Youngstown in the 6th year of the 21st Century.
It has been nearly 10 years that my good friend, Dr. Chet Amedia, asked me to join in him in business in Youngstown and to move my family to the greater Youngstown area. I am proud to call the Mahoning Valley home. I so vividly recall when we were in the process of moving here the reactions we got from people here to our move. In several cases people from utility companies questioned my wife why we would move here. In other cases, they would say, & quot;well it's not that bad if you stay out of downtown. & quot; At the time I was so struck by the native folks reaction I wrote a letter to this paper titled, "Youngstown, it's not that bad!"
In our nearly 10 years I have seen many good things occur in our community. On a recent weekend I had the chance to take an extended drive around in downtown. I was driving my daughter to the Morley Building for her Saturday rehearsals at Ballet Western Reserve. As I was driving around, I thought to myself, it is hard not to notice how nice things are looking in the core area of the city. The convention center, the opening of Federal Plaza, attractive green spaces put up by CCA and other groups, the new clubs, the new restaurants, the new courthouses and office buildings and I would be remiss if I did not mention something that has become so important to me, the Youngstown Symphony Society and our new and wonderful expansion, of what we now call the DeYor Center for the Performing Arts.
This city has so much to offer. The Butler, Ballet Western Reserve, Oakland Arts program, Youngstown Playhouse, the Gardens, the Symphony, the Museum of Labor and Industry, YSU, the Main Library, and, most importantly, all of the wonderful people we have come to know and who have become an important part of our lives. Yet so many of our fellow residents just want to complain and talk down the city. And now they will have one more reason, the crime rate.
I for one will not join those people in dumping on my adopted hometown. At this point in my career and in the life of my family we could live most anywhere, NYC, Boston, D.C., Denver, but we choose to live in the Greater Youngstown community. The job I moved my family here for no longer is located in Youngstown. Logic would say that I should move to where my job is now located. No, we want to be here and make a contribution to help our community be a better place for everyone.
I could stick my head in the sand called Canfield and make believe that the City of Youngstown was some far off land. It is not. It is the hub of our Valley and is essential to well being of the entire Valley. I for one will put my stake in the ground and not run away or run it down.
For evil to prevail, good people must do nothing. Let us not allow that to happen. The crime rate sucks, no way to sugar coat it, but as a guy who grew up in NYC in the 1960s I can tell you first hand that the only way to beat it back is to stick it out and for the good people to stick together and stand up against those who wish to do us all harm.
Youngstown still has a long way to go, but it is going in the right direction and we all need to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. I stand by my previous comments made in this paper, Youngstown, it's not that bad, adding only, it's better than you think!
PETER F. SAUER
Canfield
The writer is vice president and general manager of Fresenius Medical Care Health Plan, Inc., Broomfield, Colo.