May 2, 2011 - Hal Row's First Talk - Mayor & Hickory Hound - Microlending

Microlending has become a focus of many people living in our area since 2008. It is an issue that Harry Hipps ran on during his campaign for Hickory City Council in 2009. It is his baby in relation to the Hickory area. Microlending was first established in Third World Emerging nations, such as India, as a way to facilitate entrepreneurship amongst the poor. Harry first addressed this issue, because we have seen the lack of a credit function in this community and in many ways this relates to the grass roots business development we have seen in these emerging nations.

This issue was also was carried forward by the initial Small Business Task Force and research was executed to establish its legitimacy as a viable economic/financial function in relation to small business start ups. When this issue was brought forward at the City Council retreat of December 2009, our City Manager Mick Berry stated that it was illegal and would not let the presenter even address the issue to the City Council. Our City Council and Mayor's subservience to City Manager Berry stifled the ability to even broach the topic and this was done without question (not a peep). First of all, I have no clue where the City Manager is getting his information, but Microlending functions have been established in Charlotte, NC and San Francisco, CA and various other communities in this nation, which proves that the premise of his information is 100% false.

The most egregious issue is that the Microfinancing wasn't even allowed to be addressed to the Council and therefore no dialogue was allowed to take place related to this Microlending function. That is where I have a BIG problem with Hickory's governance. Most of the time they will listen, in this case they didn't even go that far, but 99% of the time that is all they are going to do. They have made up their minds about processes before they have even been initially discussed. Once again No Communicado - No Comprende!!! That is not open mindedness and that is not leadership. What human is going to truly support that kind of leadership? Other than gullible sheeple.

You have seen me espouse this issue many times before related to the duplicity on the issues that face the community. The Mayor in this presentation talks about needing to know a little more. He had the opportunity in December 2009 to hear a lot more about MicroLending/Microcapital/Microfinancing, but he chose to allow the City Manager to take charge and not allow the issue to be addressed. How sad that a couple of years have wasted away. This issue, by the way, had been discussed a lot by the Task Force that Mayor Wright personally created earlier that year.

I have been told personally that a Microlending function would be very helpful to Innovators who have had contact with the Manufacturing Solutions Center. Dan St. Louis, the head of the center, said that sometimes these people might only need a few hundred or a few thousand dollars. These people are usually working full time jobs and have families. In this economy, their personal budgets are stretched and they don't have money laying around to help with their side venture, so it is put on hold. So our economy is put on hold by the shortsightedness of a leadership looking to protect some theoretical interest that may not even exist.

What do I mean? Well, I have three friends that are in the Multimedia business. Alan Jackson does marketing research at The Jackson Group, Houston Harris does website development at Pixelspace, and Pat Appleson has his own multimedia studio called Pat Appleson Studios. In some areas, all of their businesses overlap and they can all do one another's core business model tasks. They don't cry about competition, because they know that their businesses can feed off of one another. I have never heard one of these guys crying about competition and worrying about someone eating their lunch. What they talk about is the need to get this local Hickory economy rolling again. What they are talking about is the slow velocity of business in our local community. What they are talking about is the lack of turnover of business activity.

In my opinion, the Mayor is only looking at ways to split up the existing pie and make sure that the CLUB is protected. That is what runs Hickory is a Club and you need to fit into that Club and its mentality to move forward in this community. They are always saying that we need to bring our ideas to them and they are looking for the "Right" investment. Well, with the stodgy, risk averse mentality of a lot of the Old School boys that I have had the privilege to know, they are going to constantly harp on why something won't work and if its a good idea they might find a way to steal it from you. That is the dilemma we face in this community.

The Banks in this community have pulled back on their lending and that is understandable. We have seen one local bank that lost their A-double-you know whats playing the Credit derivatives game on Wall Street and they are merging with a bank that settled a huge fine for participating in a Ponzi Scheme. I can assure you, that bank isn't going to be making any bold lending moves. They will be lucky to survive. I haven't seen these so called investors that the Mayor speaks of stepping up to the plate.

That is the reason why we need alternative sources of capital, and microlending is a good start. All anyone wants is the City to be supportive of this process. No one is looking for a handout. No local government official can give you a valid reason not to try this. We have got to do something. We have got to try some things. The Mayor was throwing around a $20 million figure. Well, if you've got $20 million, then I'll call your bluff and I won't even raise the stakes. Put $1 million into a Microlending trust. Draw up contracts to get the money back and eventually you can decide after ten years whether you want to leave that money in there for the public good or take it out and use it for something else for the public good. But, make no mistake, that is not the government's money. Any money the City of Hickory has is not the government's money. That is the people's money and it is a lot more valid to use it for this purpose than to put up another awning or facade Downtown. These little renovations will give some person a job for a day or two; this Microlending function can change the economic environment around here and create jobs that will last a lifetime.