From Charlotta Bright Norby, Danville —

Over the past several years Danville and Boyle County have spent many hundred thousand dollars on a series of consultants of various kinds. We’ve also contributed generously to the work of the EDP, the main focus of which seems to be to attract new businesses to the community.

I don’t even want to guess at how much money we’ve lost in taxes, which have been waived at the request of Jody Lassiter of the EDP, to attract or retain businesses to the community.

And now we read in the paper on Oct. 19, 2019, that we never needed all those jobs because there are no workers in this area to fill them! So we’ve spent all that money to attract businesses and jobs to the Danville area, but the jobs cannot be filled because the workers to fill them aren’t available in our community!

What kind of planning is that? Jody Lassiter’s flippant and irresponsible solution is for people to “Go out and have 10 more kids.” I have no idea how many, if any, children Mr. Lassiter has, but that is blatantly ridiculous.

I have two main thoughts about this debacle:

1. I wonder what Mr. Lassiter and the other folks in charge have been doing and thinking. The jobs should’ve been created where there were workers to fill them. How about if we, instead of spending our money to get them here, had made sure they’d gone to the mountain areas where there are unemployed mine workers desperate for work?
2. The governor has been running scare tactic campaign ads warning that if Andy Beshear is elected, Kentucky will be overrun with immigrants; but given our current situation, the Danville-Boyle County area should welcome any working age person interested in moving here.  If we have any sense, we will welcome immigrants to Danville. In fact, we need immigrants and we have no reason to discriminate based on national origin.