Sometimes the eyes have to see action in motion before the heart can accept that action as real.
In Ivanhoe, we believe, that’s what it will take for residents to finally accept that their long-awaited hopes of clean water are actually going to happen.
The grant has been awarded, the paper work is being shuffled in true government fashion and a time line for actual work to start is fast approaching, but until dirt is dug, pipes are laid and men, hard at work, are dirtied up from the job being done, residents there remain skeptical.
We understand their skepticism. After all, for the residents of Ivanhoe, this project has been a long, long time in coming. It’s been a costly wait for those residents, and a time-consuming one. Patience has often worn thin, and while they’ve lifted their voices together time and again, they have often felt as if their voices fell on deaf ears.
Living so far removed from the county seat, residents have often felt left out, forgotten, sometimes even abandoned.
That is no longer the case. Good, clean water is coming, and the project, though always tangled up in government red tape, is within the grasp of residents who live in the southern end of Sampson.
It is not a mirage, as some might think. It is a reality, held back now only by the paperwork that always causes a little brake-tapping along the way.
Sampson County Commissioner Lethia Lee, who represents the Ivanhoe area, says very little publicly about the project, but she has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that county staff are on top of the project and that the red tape that has to be handled gets done in an expedient manner so the project will move along as it is supposed to.
Working alongside her, Board of Commissioners Chairman Allen McLamb is also intent on seeing that the water project moves along without any further hitches. In an article that ran in Tuesday’s Sampson Independent, McLamb assured that the residents would get their clean water, and sooner now than later.
“This is going to happen,” McLamb asserted in the article. He acknowledged that the wheels of government, as we have indicated, turn slowly, but turn they are doing when it comes to the Ivanhoe water project.
“Once we start pulling the water lines, they’ll see it’s real.”
Lee is working to ensure the pulling of those lines comes quickly now, constantly talking with county staff about when that will happen.
We applaud both Lee and McLamb for staying on top of the process, ensuring that this project moves as quickly as governmentally possible.
Ivanhoe residents deserve no less. They have waited a long time.
We urge them to allow hope to surpass their skepticism, knowing that they have county leadership behind them now, a grant awarded and clean water all but within their grasp.
While Ivanhoe residents can’t see action yet, we assure them it is afoot. And before long dirt will be moved, lines will be pulled and hearts will open to the reality that a long-awaited dream really is becoming a reality.