The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Industrial site would be better as shopping center





To the Editor:

The City of Jenkins is facing an economic downturn, the most the town has ever seen. Yet it should be booming with hundreds of new jobs, because Jenkins lies on the valuable US 119 and US 23 Junction, making it a very suitable and profitable new business location. However, the city and the four-county ownership of the industrial park has paralyzed the average citizen and potential entrepreneurs by letting valuable millions of taxable real estate dollars lie dormant too long. This has virtually allowed Jenkins to fall to the ground.

I think it is time for us to change our priorities and have the property located in the industrial park turned into a large shopping center. The property would be developed fast. This will bring new shoppers to town and create new jobs which will lead to new housing units, and a much larger tax base allowing Jenkins and Letcher County to complete many unfinished projects now awaiting future grants from the state and federal governments.

We know best how to govern ourselves. If we act now and take necessary steps to develop our property, which by the way is owned by you the taxpayer, this will prevent jobs from leaving the area, and we will be able to keep our schools operating and avoid losing valuable jobs at our hospital, and may bring back the hospital once the population starts increasing. By acting now it will not only bring jobs to Jenkins, it will bring jobs to all surrounding counties and a possible increase in population to more than 3,500 new residents.

When the industrial park was conceived by our past leaders the nation had a new booming tech and Internet .com industry. It was reasonable at that time to envision new jobs coming to the Jenkins Industrial Park. Unfortunately, the economic boom bubble busted and crashed the stock market. These jobs have never recovered, what was left of the jobs were sent to the overseas countries called out-sourcing.

It’s time to face reality; few industrial jobs are coming to the industrial park if any. We must change our priority and commercialize the park. The jobs created in the service sector stores, restaurants, motels and more businesses will continue to operate when bad times come. The new businesses will continue to operate and after development gets underway, a new tax base for Jenkins and Letcher County and other surrounding counties will increase to over one million dollars in new property.

Please come to the city council meeting at Jenkins on the first Monday of each month because your tax dollars pay for our government and you the people are the owners of the government. We need your help to spend your tax dollars in a responsible way. These views speak for Terry Braddock and may or may not reflect the views of the other council members or the mayor of Jenkins.
TERRY BRADDOCK
City Councilmen
City of Jenkins



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