Vitally Important Election Upcoming (Last Year)

Vitally Important Election Upcoming
(Published in the Hickory Daily Record in November 2007)

I want to talk about our upcoming election and how important that I feel it is for Hickory’s future. This area has come to the crossroads of our existence and over the next couple of years we are going to have to make crucial decisions that will have an impact on this city for generations to come.

Going on seven years, we have seen a lack of economic productivity that has had a negative impact on most of our citizen’s standard of living. The two most important issues that this community faces are the standard of living and underemployment. These two issues are directly related to one another and without addressing these key issues; we are just going to be continuously spinning our wheels in an economic rut that leads nowhere.

There are too many people that look at our economy as though it is an accounting ledger. Dynamic economies are not built upon a series of plusses and minuses. They are built upon exponential growth brought on by investors’ willingness to risk their assets in a region based upon what it has to offer. The bottom line is that investors are going to go where they think they can get the most bang for their buck.

It is more than evident that over the last couple of years we have had two elected officials within our city that do not understand the concept of economic development. Mrs. Sally Fox and Mrs. Jill Patton have constantly voted against measures that would help foster economic growth for the area and they have voted for measures that will cost businesses thousands to millions of dollars in profit.

A few examples are the fight against Lowe’s being built on NC 127, the attempted restrictions they wanted to place on Martin-Marietta’s granite quarry, and their contentious opposition to allowing businesses an extra three years to meet the new open storage codes.

Many of you might say “Good! Sock it to ‘em,” but the reality of the situation is that these type of efforts have a hard impact on a business’s bottom line and thus their decision about whether or not to invest in this area.

It also has a direct impact in your wallet, because businesses have two ways of dealing with decreasing profits. They can either reduce their expenses (and their biggest expense is typically labor) or increase the price consumers pay for their products and/or services. Either way, in the end, you pay.

To put our economy back on solid ground, we need major industry back in the area. We don’t need any more micro-managing, big government, bureaucrats on the city council. We have been lucky so far because these two individuals have not been able to push much of their burdensome agenda through. For the sake of our city and the area that it dominates, let’s keep it that way.

Mr. Bruce Meisner is running unopposed and in my opinion he has been very much pro-growth oriented. Mr. Brad Lail and Mr. Danny Seaver are not running unopposed, but I also believe that the record shows that both of these gentlemen have for the most part supported the vital interests of businesses in this area.

Much more needs to be done and in having personal conversations with Mr. Lail, I personally believe that he gets “It.” I may not agree with Mr. Lail on all positions, but having known him for years, I can appreciate those minor differences. Most of us know that he and his family have a major stake in the success (and also failure) of this region.

Without getting into the personal details of our conversations, I can tell you that he understands the need to hit a home run on the Major Industry front. He, like myself, being a product of the UNC higher education system understands the value of education. He also understands that a good economy is built from the bottom-up and not from the top-down.

I just don’t feel that Mrs. Nancy Willingham (his opponent) could understand Hickory and its needs. She has just recently moved back to Hickory after being gone for decades. How can she understand this city and what we have been through? Nothing personal, but it appears that she is only trying to ride her father’s coat tails.

We know nothing about this lady’s platform. At this crucial point, in our city’s history, can we take that chance? I am sorry, but we cannot afford anymore of the social elite, anti-business mentality, like that of Mrs. Fox or Mrs. Patton on the council, and we can’t elect someone just because her father was mayor four decades ago.

The alternatives are clear. We can vote for pro-growth candidates that will support an agenda that will turn our economy around, sooner rather than later, or we can take our chances by voting for a nostalgic candidate. A candidate that might just throw us into the mire of bureaucratic mess that I believe Mrs. Fox and Mrs. Patton represent.

A strong, healthy, dynamic economy feeds off of itself. When people make more money, they spend more, businesses prosper, property values increase, and there will be increased revenue for our local government to improve Hickory. We can then afford a new university, nicer schools, better parks, better recreation, and all of the other amenities afforded to a robust economy.

In my opinion, the choice is yours. Do we want a responsive government that helps businesses succeed or do we want a burdensome government that chases businesses away? Will we remain at an economic standstill or will we give pro-growth candidates a mandate to move our region forward?

James Thomas Shell