Tell Your Elected Leaders You Want The Proposed South Charleston Tech Park

Higginbotham At Large is not young enough or cool enough to belong to Generation Charleston but I attended their Monday night public forum about the proposed “Tech Park”.

Let me cut to the chase: I agree with Senator Brooks McCabe, Charleston Area Alliance, Matric CEO, Keith Pauley and others that the state of West Virginia should accept The Dow Chemical Company offer of 258 acres of land and facilities and turn it into a commercialization / pilot plant facility where inventors and developers from all over the region can bring their inventions from pure research stage to the ready-for-market stage.

Getting this Tech Park project done is a perfect example of the kind of thing government should be doing for its citizens.

Thanks to Matt Ballard at Charleston Area Alliance, I am able to post a list of elected officials and their contact info below. Make some calls and write some emails and tell your elected leaders that you don’t want this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be squandered. Tell them that many of the brilliant minds who worked at the old Carbide / Dow facility back in its salad days are still here in the Kanawha Valley and many of them are ready to help. Tell them that there are already 300 jobs at the proposed tech park and experts think there could be as many as 2500 jobs with an average salary in 6 figures at this park in just a few years.

	Phone Number	Email Address
Governor
Governor Joe Manchin, III	(304) 558-2000	Governor@WVGov.org
Kanawha County Delegation
Senator Dan Foster	(304) 357-7866	Daniel.foster@camc.org
Senator Brooks McCabe	(304) 357-7990	brooks.mccabe@wvsenate.gov
Senator Corey Palumbo	(304) 357-7854	corey.palumbo@wvsenate.gov
Senator Eric Wells	(304) 340-3287	erik.wells@wvsenate.gov
Delegate:
Delegate Tim Armstead	(304) 340-3240	armstead@mail.wv.net.edu
Delegate Bonnie Brown	(304) 340-3106	bonnie.brown@wvhouse.gov
Delegate Nancy Peoples Guthrie	(304) 340-3156	nancy.gurthie@wvhouse.gov
Delegate Barbara Hatfield	(304) 340-3140	hatfield@mail.wvnet.edu
Delegate Marl Hunt	(304) 340-3392	mhunt@markahunt.com
Delegate Patrick Lane	(304) 340-3275
Delegate Mesha Poore	(304) 340-3248	mesha.poore@wvhouse.gov
Delegate Doug Skaff	(304) 340-3362	doug.skaff@wvhouse.gov
Delegate Sharon Spencer	(304) 340-3218	delspencer@aol.com
Delegate Ron Walters	(304) 340-3194	ronwalte@mail.wvnet.edu
Delegate Danny Wells	(304) 340-3287
Commissioners:
Commissioner - Kent Carper	(304) 357-0101	rachellemorrison@kanawha.us
Commissioner - David Hardy	(304) 720-4248	djhardy@agmtlaw.com
Commissioner - Henry Shores	(304) 357-0101
Mayors:
Charleston Mayor - Mayor Danny Jones	(304) 348-8000	mayorjones@cityofcharleston.org
South Charleston - Mayor Frank Mullens	(304) 744-5301
Senator Robert C. Byrd
Senator Jay Rockefeller	(304) 347-5372
Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito	(304) 925-5964