Dear Editor,
Roanoke City has not had a major business recruitment announcement for over 15 years. The Roanoke Region has not had a major business announcement for over 8 years. If one accepts the Roanoke Times editorial page premise that we are gaining in the number of jobs in the region despite all the high profile losses and despite no new industry locations (which I do not).
That means our job creation is happening on its own. If that is the case then we should eliminate the Roanoke City and Roanoke Region economic development departments and save the money.
The other possibility is we are not doing as well as you are trying to portray and /or we should have both job creation internally and major business locations from the outside. In order to recognize this truth/reality we need new leadership in the Community and at the Roanoke Times.
Brian Wishneff
Roanoke
