Small Business Resource Center

It seems to me that the Small Business Resource Center got the cart before the horse.

They are spending a lot of money on this center before they consider the issues that face this project.

1. Lack of potential employees, existing businesses are having a difficult time finding employees.

2. No affordable housing available for new residents.

3. A school system that is in disarray might not satisfy new transplant families.

4. A community image that would drive many new families away because of the four pot stores in town would lead many new prospective business owners to question how reliable new employees would be.

The citizens of Inyo County are not being well served by our county executives who willingly spend several $100,000 on this project with no bench marks for the owners to achieve by a certain dates, like one new business every three months.

If they don’t achieve this they would refund the taxpayers money. It would also be helpful from a taxpayers point of view if the high-paid CAOs were asked to have some financial responsibility like a business owner who has to live with the financial outcome of his decisions. This way they could relate to the real live financial experiences of the tax-paying citizen.

The issues mentioned above should be dealt with before more taxpayer dollars are spent. A starting point would be to sit down with Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and plan a solution to the affordable housing issue that affects all businesses, including DWP.

Carl Hoelscher Bishop