Pioneering Tomorrow wants to foster better collaboration between city government
and the business community on key issues affecting the community and its residents

More than 30 civic and business leaders in East Ridge have come together to launch a new initiative focused on fostering community discussions on ideas that will drive future opportunities for the city of East Ridge and help position the City as the best place to live, work, play and retire in Hamilton County.

This new initiative – Pioneering Tomorrow – will look at ways the business community can partner with city leaders and residents to solve critical problems facing East Ridge while working on creating new opportunities that will improve the quality of life for all East Ridge residents, support the growing needs of the business community and foster a climate that will attract future investments inside the city of East Ridge for years to come.

“Having an engaged business community is an essential part to building a stronger East Ridge,” said Mike Steele, former mayor for the city of East Ridge and current spokesperson for the Pioneering Tomorrow initiative.  “Pioneering Tomorrow is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization comprised of local business and community leaders who are invested in East Ridge and want to advocate for ideas that will help position the City as the best place to live, work, play and retire in Hamilton County.”

East Ridge is known for being a resident and business-friendly community that provides a high-level of city services with a minimal amount of city taxes. This perception was challenged last year after the East Ridge City Council made the difficult decision to raise local property taxes for the first time in a decade to ensure the City could maintain city services at their current level and address several important priorities for the community.

Members of the East Ridge business community decided to form Pioneering Tomorrow to help initiate and drive a community-wide discussion on how the business community and elected leaders can work together and make strategic decisions that will attract more businesses and visitors to all areas of East Ridge, both of which are critical to driving future growth in our sales tax and hotel-motel tax revenues that city government can use to offset the need for another property tax increase.

“Pioneering Tomorrow is about solving problems and creating new opportunities that will improve the quality of life for all residents in East Ridge, support the ongoing needs of the business community and spur new investments to ensure our great City is capturing the type of growth, economic development and visitors that will lead our community into the future,” said Steele. “Pioneering Tomorrow believes careful decisions around how and where East Ridge grows during the next 5-10 years are critical to building needed fiscal strength in city government.  Likewise, these decisions play an important role in maintaining the recent growth in the Border Region Retail Development District while attracting and retaining new businesses and residents that can help revitalize the middle and western ends of East Ridge.”

As of today, Pioneering Tomorrow is comprised of the following business and civic leaders:

Steele continued, “The growth of East Ridge has always been driven by an independent, pioneer spirit – starting with the Lomenick family to Weldon F. Osborne to many others who have helped build East Ridge into the city we all enjoy today. Pioneering Tomorrow is comprised of business and civic leaders from all areas of East Ridge, and it is now our responsibility to engage the elected representatives of East Ridge and the citizens we all serve on how all of us can work together, solve the important problems facing our community and write the next big chapter in East Ridge’s story.”

For more information on Pioneering Tomorrow, please visit www.PioneeringTomorrow.org or following our efforts on one of the following social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.