Job loss tracked over time

The latest unemployment figures were a relief locally …. almost. Maintaining the same 13.3 percent unemployment rate is hardly something for Surry to cheer about, but after so many months of steady increases, it’s nice to see the number reach a peak.

For a little more perspective on these numbers, check out this excellent animated graphic in Slate tracking job loss/gain over the last couple of years. You can pick any of the last 26 months and see how Surry’s job totals compared to a year prior, plus it provides cues on how the rest of the country was fairing. Quick take: Surry’s job losses started well before the rest of the country hit the skids, but it wasn’t the only part of the nation hurting as far back as 2007.

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Fibrowatt survey update

I posted last month about the phone survey regarding a Fibrowatt plant in Surry. Here’s the full transcript of questions and results for Surry and Yadkin respondents. Judge for yourself if you feel the questions are biased against the project.

In the meantime, the Charlotte Observer has now written a piece on the issue (first time in years I can recall that paper covering something in Surry) and it also ran in the Raleigh News & Observer. Both papers wrote their own editorials on Fibrowatt, with Charlotte taking making a straightforward appeal for caution while the N&O is a bit harder hitting about warning flags needing to go up.

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Who’s minding the ABC store?

What does it take for the Mount Airy City Council to use a Civil War analogy regarding central government overstepping its bounds? The possibility of the state ABC Commission taking over operations of the local liquor store. This bill actually has a number of municipalities in a tizzy (though I doubt many have commissioners joke at a public meeting “let (the state) know that in the past when something like this happened there were shots fired at Fort Sumter”), as the legislation authorizes the state to merge or close local ABC commissions if they’re stores aren’t making a healthy profit.

Based on the most recent ABC finance records, Mount Airy’s store made a 11 percent profit in 2008, better than most other ABC commissions including those in Elkin and Dobson. But a bigger concern than a shuttered store among commissioners is that the revenues the store generates won’t remain in the community. Each ABC board has a lot of leeway on where to distribute the profits, and the ones in Surry set aside large chunks for local government and/or community organizations. The state could have other ideas on how to spend that money.

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