Mayor Earl Johnson gave a “state of the city” address to his fellow Rotarians on Tuesday and talked about the many positive things happening here. Since 2007, he has documented public and private investments in Andalusia totaling $168 million.

The result is a city that is the envy or her peers, and improved infrastructure, and increasing tax revenues in an economic recession that has left other municipalities hurting.

The news was all good, and then he sweetened deal, announcing that just yesterday, the city reached an agreement with GreenSteel Homes, LLC, to locate in a previously unoccupied spec building in the city’s industrial park. The company builds architecturally-designed “green” steel homes with a completely wood-free recycled structure.

The bottom line is that they’ll bring at least 50 new jobs here in their first year of operation, and that training for the people they hire will be provided by the state’s AIDT.

Call it an early Christmas present, or add it to the reasons for which we are thankful. Either way, we are blessed to live in a blossoming community, part of a country where even those who have the least have far more than those in third world countries.

Indeed , we are blessed.