While all of the above posts have great ideas I see this as a required plot hook to keep things interesting.
There is an external enemy that has a desire to see this town fail for the betterment of their own motivations, perhaps a rival country or militant revolutionary group. This opens up a whole new plot to discover while the PC's are achieving the mission. Even though there is already several plots, this gives the PC's options as to which plot they choose and then while they will likely succeed in the plot they choose, neglecting the other plot will of course have negative consequences that start a new plot. I always find it best to have at least 3 plot options for the PC's, that way they can deal with one personally, send their allies to deal with another (which will always be inferior to the PC's handling it themselves) and the last one gets much worse and causes new issues, as does the other two plots as the PC's will advance their own plot, as will their allies run into complications and the NPC villains will continue to their motivations unabated in the third scenario.