Cook offers real solutions
The number one natural resource in the Mon Valley was coal. Many families made sacrifices to help sustain that resource for decades and now, that resource is gone, for the most part.
In a tour of the Mon Valley with Bud Cook, a candidate for state representative for Legislative District 49, it became apparent, since the elimination of coal as a major revenue source, nothing has taken its place. The present-day elected officials all promise new jobs, but in all reality, none of them know how to keep their promises. Cook, a family man with deep roots in the Mon Valley, is different from other existing or candidates for state representatives in that he knows “how to” create new jobs in the Mon Valley. He just does not make idle promises.
Under Cook’s supervision, meetings are taking place with existing companies to determine “how to” expand their businesses and create new jobs. For the record, fast-food companies are not considered as a part of the long-term economic development process as providing sustainable incomes since they only provide minimum wages. Cook is in the process of determining such programs as reverse trade investment, federal, state and military porocurement opportunities and the formation of the Pennsylvania World Trade Council.
For the most part the Mon Valley, with minimum exceptions, looks like a blighted region with empty store fronts, former factories closed, commerce on the Monongahela River to an all-time minimum and of course, too many people, and especially our youth – out of work.
The economic development problems that have been caused over the past decade will take time to correct and Cook, as your State Representative, has several solutions to restore the region to become a vital area to the overall economy.
It is time for the people of the Mon Valley to have a change in leadership, based on fact not fiction, as you have had for the last several years. Cook is the solution; not a part of the problem.
Theodore S. J. Davi
Greensburg