On June 11 my mother and I made an unscheduled stop in Ironton.

Our purpose was to gather additional information about the city of Ironton as a whole, but our primary focus was concerning the history of the present Ironton City Center.

As some may be aware, the city of Portsmouth has been in a state of turmoil for several years over where it wants to relocate the city offices. I will not go into detail. There is not enough room in this paper to even begin to tell the story.

Recently, during Portsmouth City Council meetings, the Ironton City Center was referenced. Citizens were urged to look into how Ironton had taken a former retail building and converted it into a place to house city offices.

It is our opinion this was done with the belief nobody would put forth the time or effort to do so. However, at least two of us did just that.

During our visit we were able to meet with several city of Ironton employees and even one former employee serving the community in a different position. I will withhold their names but if they read this they will know who they are.

All of the employees we met were not only able to provide us with the information we were seeking, but were also happy to take the time to happily answer any questions.

During our conversations, you could not only see but feel the positive, enthusiastic feelings they had about the city of Ironton. I cannot begin to tell you how refreshing it was to see a city government in operation that involves the citizens and has their best interests in mind, especially when it comes to spending their hard-earned tax dollars.

We realize no government is perfect, however, we fully believe the citizens of Ironton have a city government they can be proud of. Ironton certainly appears to be headed in the right direction.

On our return trip back to Portsmouth, we wondered if we could have possibly been treated any better had we made prior arrangements with those we had contact with. We fully believe the answer is, “No.”

Thank you to all of the individuals we spoke with for all your help and assistance. Keep up the good work!

PAUL PENIX Jr.

Portsmouth