We have a wonderful high tech economy here in North Central West Virginia. Unfortunately, it receives very little support from state government, while high tech sectors in neighboring states are getting massive funding input from their states.
Rather than recognize the huge potential present here, and throw an appropriate level of support behind it, state government has instead chosen to only allocate $200,000 per year in support while throwing millions of dollars toward a development that was actually abandoned by researchers in another part of the state, resulting in a new building for a community college and a new cafeteria. Community colleges are nice, but they do not train or employ researchers. They train entry level technicians and mechanics. Yet the state continues on this blindly inappropriate course in the failed pork barrel political tradition of the past, and fails to adequately recognize real development and potential as it exists, possibly threatening its very survival as other states recognize and support their real, actual high tech sectors.
What we need in NCWV is the kind of state support they gave to Gestamp to set up a factory in Charleston, and the kinds of millions they are throwing at the research park there, which have to date yielded little in the way of actual results. We have real assets in place here that need nurturing and help from our state if they are to continue paying the state taxes the rest of the state vitally needs to fix their roads and support their boards of education. I realize that the wasteful pork is not going to stop any time soon, but it is high time our state at least start putting as much support into keeping and growing what is actually here as it does in trying to create something from nothing, or next to nothing.
Crown jewel of NCWV region - The Exponent Telegram : Local News
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