Open Letter To West Virginia's Legislators Re: West Virginia's Economy

With your powers of policy and purse, West Virginia's legislators are not only responsible for the budget, you are the de facto Chief Economic Development Officers for the state.

Our high schools are telling our teenagers that they must plan to leave West Virginia after high school or college because our elected leaders aren't going to do what it takes to give our youth a fighting chance to succeed here. You must stop wringing your hands and clucking about Governor Jim Justice's plan to make Woody Thrasher richer and come up with a plan of your own. You can't fix West Virginia's economy without spending some money. I'm sorry that previous governors and previous legislatures have neglected economic development for decades leaving you with an economic and population emergency but that's what you signed up for when you ran for your seat as a de facto Economic Development Chief. Now do your job. You should have already had an economic plan when you filed for office. 

Below, is my plan. Don't criticize my plan if you don't have one.   

1. Make the Promise Scholarship a STEM scholarship. Companies won’t come here for our English majors, political science majors and communications majors, but they will come here to gain access to our mathematicians, software engineers, chemists and other STEM grads if we produce them in large numbers.

2. Require Promise Scholarship recipients to sign a contract with West Virginia obligating them to stay in West Virginia for, say, 5 years after graduation. Too many of West Virginia’s college grads are leaving with their degrees and making some other state’s workforce magnetic to outside investment. If they give us five years, they’ll marry, have children, build houses, make friends. Most will never leave. Maybe along the way they’ll invent things and, who knows, maybe some of them will start the next Apple or the next Google.

3. Expand the Promise Scholarship to fund tens of thousands of students’ annually instead of the current 3,000 to 3,500 annually. At its current size, the Promise Scholarship is the right medicine in a dosage insufficient to heal the West Virginia economy.

4. Double the per-student annual scholarship award from its current $4,750 to around $9,000 or $10,000 so students can carry full loads and finish in 4 years.

5. Pay the college debt of STEM grads who want to come to West Virginia and are willing to sign a contract requiring them to become part of West Virginia’s workforce for at least five years.

6. Pay for the above with a severance tax, an excise tax or the proceeds from the state lottery or some combination of the aforementioned.

About Joseph Higginbotham:

Joseph Higginbotham is a former member of the West Virginia Region III Workforce Investment Board, a former executive and technical search consultant, a former general manager and a former columnist and writer for newspapers, magazines and journals such as Business Lexington, Rx HomeCare, Leadership, Drug Store News, Campus Career Counselor, Home Health Care Dealer and more. Higginbotham has spoken professionally at over 40 venues, served as an “expert panelist” at jobseeker workshops and a guest on numerous talk radio shows.

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Higginbotham At Large neither reads nor publishes comments from pseudonymous or anonymous commenters. No Ring of Gyges for you.

Mitch Carmichael, Tim Armstead, Senator Mike Hall, Corey Palumbo, Hoppy Kercheval, Mayor Danny Jones, Tom Roten, Jake Jarvis, Ashton Marra, Scott Finn, #StruggleToStay,

Why Are Charleston’s Conservative Radio Talk Show Hosts Against the Tech Park?

Why Are Charleston’s Conservative Radio Talk Show Hosts Against the Tech Park?

Is it because the hi-tech tenants of that proposed park aren’t the kind of businesses that are likely to buy much radio advertising?

If the proponents of a plan to transfer ownership of the old Union Carbide/Dow Chemical site to the state wanted to fill that property with car lots and restaurants would Charleston’s conservative radio talk show hosts still oppose the plan?

I doubt it.

OK, Charleston’s conservative – it’s the only kind we have – radio talk show hosts seem to be a little confused so let me help them understand why they should support a plan to create businesses that won’t buy radio ads and won’t bring them free food while they’re on the air.

Conservatives are supposed to be in favor of economic development and job creation. The proposed tech park is a chance for our government to incubate new employers and attract still others resulting in hundreds or thousands of well-paying hi-tech jobs that will pump millions of dollars into the local economy. That's good.

While it’s true that hi-tech firms aren’t likely to buy many radio ads, the millions of dollars they pay their employees will enable hundreds or thousands of families to spend more money at restaurants and car lots resulting in more radio ad dollars for conservative talk radio.

True economic development involves monetizing something that wasn’t monetized before. To do that you have to either discover something of value and then monetize it or you have to invent / create / build something new and then monetize it.

If one of the restaurants that bring Charleston’s conservative talk radio hosts free food sells a meal, no new wealth was pumped into the Charleston economy and no new jobs were created here. The restaurant that sold the meal simply benefited at the expense of restaurants that didn’t sell that meal. The patron who bought that meal had to eat somewhere. The preparation and sale of a meal isn't economic development, it's simply a question of where the food is prepared and sold. Whether that consumer eats at restaurant A, restaurant B or simply stays home and fixes himself a sandwich, no new dollars come into the economy as a result of the consumer's choice.

"But" some may say, "if everybody stays home and fixes a sandwich, isn't that bad for the local economy?"

It's more money for Kroger, less for The Tidewater Grill or Aubrey's.

Note: Higginbotham At Large likes both Aubrey's and The Tidewater Grill so there's no need for people who own, manage or sell ads to those fine establishments to get mad. My point is simple: some kinds of business don't bring new money into the local economy.

Other kinds do.

The hi-tech jobs that a “commercialization” / pilot plant” park can bring to Charleston will result in new inventions and patents and in hi-tech jobs that will go somewhere else if we don’t capture them here. In other words, something new (inventions, patents, new products, new processes) will be created and monetized. That’s true economic development that benefits everybody in the Charleston area.

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Higginbotham At Large welcomes comments – especially comments to the contrary. Just keep it clean and civil.

More On Economic Development And Why Animal Abuse Is Bad For It - Even In Huntington, WV

Higginbotham At Large Sunday 24 January 2010:

In This Issue:

- Why Some Huntingtonians Need To Look Up "Vigilantism" In A Dictionary

- Why Animal Abuse Is Bad For Economic Development

Why Some Huntingtonians Need To Look Up “Vigilantism” In A Dictionary

When Huntington passed a dog-tethering ordinance certain members of Huntington’s city council tried to prevent the new ordinance’s enforcement by cautioning animal activists against “vigilantism”, by which they meant reporting violations of the law. When a well-intentioned Huntington woman made a list of Huntington residences where dogs were being tethered in violation of the law, some of them without shelter during our recent 15 degree cold snap, and handed this list to law enforcement officials she was accused of “stalking” a city councilman whose address was on the list. So worried that her group would be accused of vigilantism, one animal welfare leader actually sided with the animal abusing city councilman against the woman who turned him in.

This is why some Huntingtonians need to look up the word “vigilantism” in a dictionary. And while they’re in research mode I hope they will also go down to the Huntington police department and find out if there’s such a thing as a citizen’s arrest for, if making a citizen’s arrest is not vigilantism then certainly it is not vigilantism to report a crime – which is all the animal activist did.

Huntington, if you’re reading this blog online then you have internet access and can use Dictionary.com which defines a “vigilante” as “any person who takes the law into his or her own hands, as by avenging a crime.”

The woman who made the list of addresses where dogs were being tethered in violation of the Huntington law did not “take the law into her own hands” nor did she “avenge a crime.” She simply asked Huntington to enforce its laws and she merely reported a crime. This, folks, is good citizenship. When you see a crime being committed you are supposed to report it. Don’t they teach citizenship in Cabell County schools? Oh, you say Cabell Countians are just Wayne Countians who moved uptown? OK, don’t they teach citizenship in Wayne County schools? And how can members of council tell Huntington’s children to grow up to be good citizens if they refuse to obey and enforce Huntington’s laws?

By the way, Huntington, you can’t get this definition from a dictionary but you need to know its meaning. When a so-called humane officer, police chief, mayor or city council member says a law is “unenforceable” that’s code for “I don’t want to enforce it and you don’t have to obey it.”

Certainly any law is more enforceable when citizens are not intimidated into not reporting violations.

Incidentally, Kanawha County readers, you have a new dog tethering ordinance, too, so when you see your city councilman or your pastor or your neighbor tying his poor dog to a stake in the yard without food, water or shelter for hours at a time, don't hesitate to call the police and the Kanawha Charleston Human Association Animal Shelter. If you are dismissed as a "vigilante" or a "stalker" by your mayor or your city councilman or by a so-called humane officer, call the news media.

If you know where there’s a so-called “humane officer” who won’t investigate animal abuse laws, get them fired. If you know where there’s a city council member who violates animal abuse laws, make sure everybody in their ward knows. Oh, and report it to the news media. Shame and embarrassment often work where so-called humane officers won't. Did you ever wonder why Native Americans didn't need prisons or why the ancient religious practice of "shunning" is such an effective means of reigning in behavior that doesn't meet with society's approval?

Why Animal Abuse Is Bad For Economic Development

“We don't want tourists or businesses to perceive our community as a place that condones animal abuse," Dr. Cecelia Perrow, President, Grants/Cibola county Chamber of Commerce.

Civilized people don’t want to live in a city where their neighbors can tether an animal 24 hours a day in freezing temperatures, with no liquid water to drink and no shelter against the wind and the cold. As I’ve written in my blog before, “stray” animals and wild animals are better off than tethered dogs because a tethered or confined dog cannot go in search of warmth, water, food or shelter but even a wild raccoon can climb into the warm engine compartment of a parked car to seek some relief from the cold and a “stray” dog or cat can search or beg for food.

Suppose you were visiting friends or relatives in a city that allowed people to abuse animals either by its refusal to pass animal protection laws or its refusal to enforce them? Would you want to live there? Suppose you bought a house in a city where city council members commit crimes against animals and when you tried to report it to the police or humane officers you were scolded for “stalking” or “vigilantism”, what would you think of this town? Could you tell your business associates and friends that this is a good city in which to start a business or raise a family?

Unnecessary and preventable cruelty to animals isn’t just an ethical and moral issue it’s an economic development issue. Chambers of Commerce and other economic development organizations should help brand their cities as enlightened and civilized “creative class” cities by insisting on specific animal protection laws and their enforcement.

When asked about cockfighting's role in New Mexico's economic development, John Garcia, Secretary of Economic Development, recently said on KOAT Channel 7: "It's an absurd form of entertainment that is from the Dark Ages. I think we need to look ahead at different benefits, different industries ... prostitution has an economic impact, too, but it's not legal." In addition, the Grants/Cibola County Chamber of Commerce and the Lordsburg/Hidalgo County Chamber of Commerce both are opposed to cockfighting in their communities. "Cockfighting is not the image we want the world to have of Cibola County. We don't want tourists or businesses to perceive our community as a place that condones animal abuse," Dr. Cecelia Perrow, President, Grants/Cibola county Chamber of Commerce. (From http://www.apnm.org/)

What’s bad for your city’s brand is bad for your city’s economic development. Yes, I know your city may lose a few animal abusing rednecks if you pass and enforce laws against animal abuse but the kind of people who hurt and abuse animals for sport are not the kind of people you’re going to feature on the front page of your Chamber brochure.