Oftentimes, an organization that is started to meet a specific need either gets the job done or the issue runs its course, and the organization drifts off into the wind. Unfortunately, in the case of Franklin Southampton Futures, the issues of better cooperation and the consolidation of services between Franklin and Southampton County has neither been solved nor run its course, yet into the wind Futures goes.

Franklin Southampton Futures was a great idea hatched to meet a real and pressing need in our community, and we commend those whose leadership brought the organization into being. But for reasons known only to those most closely involved, Futures never quite took full flight, leaving many disappointed that more was not accomplished during the group’s existence.

Natural inclination will lead many to lament Futures’ drifting off into the wind as proof that cooperation between the two localities will never be realized because it’s contrary to the way things have always been done here. We respectfully disagree.

Consolidation of many services, if not formal consolidation of Franklin and Southampton County, is an idea whose time has come, and it will take the efforts of a unified organization equally represented by both localities to get it done. Franklin Southampton Futures may not have been the perfect approach to solving the issues. Or maybe it was, and the timing just wasn’t right. In either case, we hope to soon see a new organization that is formed to take on the challenge, or perhaps even a reincarnation of Futures itself, because consolidation of services is an issue too important to watch simply drift off into the wind.