The Lynchburg News and Advance: Asks the Council Candidates Another Question

The Lynchburg News and Advance has been asking the City Council Candidates a question a week. This weeks question:

Question: How will you help Lynchburg train, recruit and retain a younger work force to fill its current vacancies and build the work force in the future?

The answers of each of the candidates were very similar. Basically, it was to build on what has already been done by Region 2000 and the Central Virginia Community College.

But the question of bringing new businesses to our area, that would improve the wages and benefits for our residents was left unanswered. The point is that good employment opportunities are declining in the Lynchburg area, as is the wage per hour.

A better question would have been what has the city done in the past five years to bring quality jobs to our area? And, what should the city do in the next five years?

Its one thing to improve the skills of the workers, but it is quite another to have a place for these trained workers to go to work. Today there are rumors that Toyota is in search of building a new assembly plant, maybe outside of Roanoke. Should not Lynchburg be courting Toyota in building the plant here?