Delegate Advises
Mannix
Porterfield
The Register-Herald, Jan. 8, 2007
CHARLESTON
— Delegate Richard Browning has some advice for the West Virginia Chamber of
Commerce — drop the negative tune and begin singing from the song book of
achievements.
Chamber President Steve Roberts hasn’t yet turned in a report he promised to
back up his claims a negative climate has driven some businesses away, the Joint
Commission on Economic Development learned Sunday. “I guess it’s easier to
run an ad,” Sen. Robert Plymale, D-Wayne, told fellow panelists.
Plymale’s allusion was to a controversial ad the Chamber ran last fall,
zeroing in on what it perceived as a biased judicial system that is weighted
against the business community. That ad came under severe criticism by some
commission members, and Roberts eventually appeared before it to defend the
message, pledging to supply the panel with proof of how the judicial system
needs some fine-tuning to make West Virginia more attractive.
“I think if we’re going to promote business in West Virginia, the state’s
leading business promoter should talk about the good things, the good things the
Legislature has done in the past six to eight years,” Browning, D-Wyoming,
said after the brief interims meeting. “Talk about those improvements, rather
than tell people before they even get here that we are a bad place to do
business, which I disagree with.”
Browning said the commission received a report from the West Virginia Trial
Lawyers Association, refuting Roberts’ claims about the judicial system.
In recent years, Browning told Roberts at the December meeting, the Legislature
has revamped the judicial system with a number of reforms, made sweeping changes
in medical malpractice and general insurance, and privatized workers’
compensation. “I don’t think we’re a bad place to do business,” he said
after Sunday’s meeting.
“I think we’re a wonderful place to do business. Those are things we ought
to be marketing, some of the achievements we have done. We ought to be singing
from the same hymnal to make a positive change for
The commission wants a host of studies undertaken this year during interims,
among them a comprehensive energy policy and the prospects of stripping economic
development from the West Virginia Parkways Authority. By a legislative act, the
authority not only manages the Turnpike but engages in economic and tourism
projects.
“The name of the authority itself suggests that they ought to be in economic
development,” Browning said. “I’ve often wondered how extensively they do
the research and so forth necessary to allow them to make those kinds of
decisions. In
Before the Legislature moves to separate the authority from economic ventures,
Browning wants to see how investments have been done in the past. “And how we
can make any changes, if needed, to make it so we get the biggest bang for the
buck in the future,” he said.
The commission also suggested a study on expanding the authority’s showcase
venture, Tamarack in
Tamarack came under fire in a report by the Legislative Auditor, which portrayed
it as a losing enterprise that needs a $2 million-a-year infusion of concessions
revenue to keep it going — money that could have been used for upkeep on the
Princeton-to-Charleston toll road.