Everyone knows me for speaking my mind, so I’m sure you’ll take this in the spirit it’s meant.

I’m really hopeful that our community leaders will continue to look at business development as a positive and not a negative. We need to look good, but we need new business that drives fresh revenue or else how will we be able to afford to look good?

There is no room for elitists but plenty of room for those who want to be welcoming. Exclusionary attitudes have no place in an economy that needs development and through that development, the creation of jobs. What a wonderful concept. Baseball legend Leo Durocher once said, “I come to win-period.” Let’s all win together, shall we?

Speaking of winning, we had another incredibly well-attended Business After Hours in April at Crazy Horse Racing in South Paris and Mitch and Judy Green were great hosts. What a great business they have there, building race cars for places like Oxford Plains Speedway, along with the American Canadian Tour and the Pro All Star Series.

But what they are doing to mentor our young people is worth applauding big time. They are working with middle school students to build a Late Model stock car that will race this summer at Oxford Plains Speedway. This is an incredible project that is helping develop a group of 45 students from the Aspire Higher Race Car Team who are serving as leaders, builders, engineers, graphic designers, financial officers, public relations personnel, technology specialists, along with groups developing marketing and advertising campaigns to help raise the money to build and finally drive this car competitively. For more information on how you can help, go to wwww.racecar.msad17.org.

And this is a perfect segway into the racing season, which opens at Maine’s largest track this coming weekend, Oxford Plains Speedway. This is one of the region’s premier event venues and this weekend, we will welcome the American Canadian Tour, along with the Pro All Star Series, featuring dozens of top race car drivers from all over New England and Canada for Dual 150 lap races.

Literally hundreds of thousands of fans come to races at the Plains every summer from the middle of October to the end of September and that generates revenue, which helps driver our economy.Mike Mayberry is the General Manager and Tom Mayberry the owner and they are interested in putting on the very best show in racing for everyone. So go and support your local track this weekend and for more information, go to www.oxfordplains.com for the entire schedule.

Finally I’m very involved in the ongoing work surrounding passenger rail for this area and I know you’ve heard about it and it seems extremely slow to get anything done. But the reality is it will take a great deal of time before this comes to fruition, and advocacy for passenger rail is strong in our area and could become a strong component of economic development. I will keep you informed as to its continued progress.

We’re all about promoting the Oxford Hills and I’ll see you next week.