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We are capable of change.

One thing Corona has shown us is that we as a people can act dramatically when confronted with a big challenge. That we can solve our problems and act with speed and energy when we summon the will to do so. It’s something human beings are very good at – acting in a crisis.
While we as a people have many strengths, something we struggle with is looking ahead and planning for the future. That is why it took so long for many countries to enact effective protections against this virus. We only feel a sense of urgency when we are directly up against the problem.

By the same logic that is why WV has never taken the steps necessary to transform our economy. Because looking ahead and planning for the future are difficult. The simple truth is that WV needed a diversified economy decades ago. The problem was clear for everyone to see. Imagine what WV would look like today had we acted…our population growing, our people free of addiction, well-paying jobs for everyone, an education system that is best in the nation, and small businesses thriving. Instead 10,000 people flee this state every year, salaries are bottom in the nation, an entire generation is struggling with addiction, and our education system is underfunded and overwhelmed. That is the price of inaction and the price all of us pay every day.

And yet even now as we face these consequences head on, still I sense no sense of urgency from our elected leaders. Where is their fire for change, their desire to help their neighbors? More business as usual, more WV limping along. More inaction. More of the same. I’m tired of the same from our elected leaders, very, very tired.

This election, no matter which party you support, do your research. Democracy is hard and it takes work. Choose a candidate who inspires you and embodies the best of humanity. Because we are going to need them. We are capable of change. We can solve our problems. And the time to act is now.

I just got back from the Kanawha City Community Association Annual Community Meeting. Present were Mayor Amy Goodwin, Police Chief Opie Smith and several members of the police force to answer questions from residents. I left this meeting with a sense of hope for the future of Charleston. I’ll detail some of my observations below but first a link to the KCCA: http://www.kanawhacity.org/ If you live in Kanawha City then please join. Fee is next to nothing, these folks are doing great work, and the more people that join and get involved the better KC will be for everyone.

Last blog post was about the recent community meeting in Dunbar where residents were incredibly angry with the job their city government was doing. The meeting tonight was a very different experience. Whereas Dunbar officials kept passing the buck and making excuses for why they couldn’t solve the problems of residents, Charleston officials never once did that. Every single complaint, no matter how small or large, was treated with respect. Officials told residents what was being done, what was being planned, then took names and numbers down for follow up. Whenever someone didn’t know an answer they said “we’ll figure it out, get back with you tomorrow, and solve the problem.” No blame assigning, no passing the buck, just a focus on the problem and how best to solve it. Charleston is being proactive in solving problems, they are thinking long term, and they aren’t waiting for things to get to a boiling point before addressing them. That’s the way government should run and it brings me hope.

Some of the things Charleston is doing really well:

Here to Serve Events — Mayor’s Office and all Department heads show up and answer questions from any resident. It’s a great public outreach program and one I plan on attending next time. Be ready Director of Refuse Collection as I complain about my trash pickup!! Check my website and I’ll make sure to add it to events. www.jonhague.com

Charleston Economic Incentive Fund — I hope to be speaking with Mayor Goodwin soon about this program. I want to see what can be learned and applied to other areas of Kanawha County. I have a feeling it will be a model for other cities and communities.

Reunification Program — This is a program designed to combat vagrancy. What it does is it attempts to reunify a criminal vagrant with their family and home community. A lot of homeless are constantly traveling from area to area and this leaves them without a support network when they get into trouble. And having an effective support network is key when attempting to exit out of addiction. Seems to be an effective tool in combating the revolving door of addiction and criminal vagrancy.

Bus Work Program — I’m sure they will come up with a better name but this is something they are considering setting up based on a program Albuquerque New Mexico is doing. Essentially a bus runs every day and picks up homeless people who are willing to work and gives them jobs in landscaping, trash collection, etc. Gives people a paycheck and gets them back on the path to rejoining the workforce.

I did hear some anger directed towards the state Legislature from residents. They feel that the state Legislature is out of touch and more of a hindrance than a help to the people on the front lines. I couldn’t agree more. It’s why I’m running for State Senate. I’ve always been drawn to where there is the greatest need. Right now that’s the Senate. It’s dysfunctional, hyper-partisan, and needs a sea change in how it operates. And a sea change is coming.

Best in Show Awards:

Mayor Goodwin. Amy is a superstar. She’s dynamic and vibrant when she speaks and her method of running city hall is leaps and bounds better than her predecessor. She’s also humble, gives credit away, and is not focused on the politically right thing to do but what is in the best interests of her people. The Democratic Party should put her front and center of all its efforts in the future as it seeks to reclaim power in WV. That’s high praise but people like her don’t come along every day.

Honorable Mention:
Sergeant Jason Webb. Jason is the Public Services Division Commander of the Charleston Police Dept. He spoke at length on the homeless and vagrancy crisis affecting the Kanawha Valley. He spoke in front of an angry crowd (because people are always angry at this) and told them everything Charleston was doing and planning to do to combat this issue. He explained that you needed a systemic approach to solving this issue, that enforcement alone wouldn’t work. He talked about a Multi-Jurisdictional Task Force on Homelessness they formed and how Charleston was actively learning from other areas around the country who are also dealing with this issue. At the end of his speech that angry crowd was on his side. And he was swamped with questions after the meeting from residents who were similarly impressed with him and the job the police force is doing.

Charleston is in good hands folks. It is great to see.

I just attended the Dunbar Town Hall to address the homeless and vagrancy issues Dunbar is having. There are a lot of pissed off citizens in Dunbar. Dunbar is one of the hot spots of the opioid and homeless problem in WV and its citizens are absolutely fed up with inaction on this issue. Most of the Town Hall was spent by Dunbar city officials making excuses for why they couldn’t arrest criminal vagrants. Yes we need some tweaks to state code but when somebody kicks in your door and the city prosecutor says “what was their intent?” then it’s not a matter of state code, it’s a matter of your city officials not doing their job. Now the meeting ended on a nice kumbaya moment where the state Legislators in attendance gave out their personal cell phones and promised to work with city officials to solve the problem. (I’m sure a lot of Legislators who really didn’t want to give out their personal cell phone # will have words with Delegate Byrd who started that trend). That’s how the news is going to report this meeting – a kumbaya moment and Legislators will work on the issue. But this problem has been going on for 9 years. Every elected official has known about it for years and not addressed it.

The one thing that was never said by any elected official was “yes this is a problem, and it’s our job as your elected officials to deal with it and we’re going to take care of it.” I keep going over and over that in my mind. To me a leader takes responsibility for the problem. It really bothers me what I saw. Lots of excuses, lots of passing the buck around. But nobody took ownership. I feel like I need a shower from all the slimy politician excuses that were floating around.

Best in Show Awards:
Best show by elected officials: Delegate Byrd in first and Delegate Moore-Capito in second. Both gave good speeches (Moore-Capito arrived late and rambled on some political tangent so negative points for that).

Worst show by elected official: The gentleman who claimed they couldn’t arrest people because it costs $52 dollars a day to house them. I didn’t catch his name but it was a good thing he shut up after that. Dude was about to get lynched.

Worst fact of the night: City of Dunbar has ZERO drug recovery programs.

And the absolute best line of the night came from a citizen who very succinctly laid out the fact that our Legislators, being of the wealthy variety, may not care about homelessness in Dunbar quite as much as the average citizen. He looked straight at Eric Nelson Jr. and said, “I have a question for the Legislators…is there a homeless problem in South Hills?” He deservedly got a thunderous round of applause.

I will be laying out a plan on my website for this issue. It’s an issue that affects Dunbar and Charleston and Huntington and every area in between. It’s based on what other cities in the country have done so it’s not reinventing the wheel. And it will work. But it will take leadership. Because all levels of government and the business community and the citizens and the faith community will need to pull together on one solution. Right now everybody is pulling in their own direction and it is not working. But that’s what good leaders do. They get disparate people to work together. And right now West Virginia needs true leadership.

I was talking to a supporter yesterday about all the things I would like to do for state employees. As a former state employee I know how much they struggle. I want to raise salaries so they are competitive, I want to reestablish a matching 401K. And he said, “that sounds great but people are going to say we can’t afford to do this.” My response was that we can’t afford NOT to do this. Our population decline is the root cause of every economic problem we have. People leave because they can make much better money out of state. As people leave our tax base shrinks and we have to cut because of less money. More people leave, more cutting. It’s what I call our economic death spiral. And it must be stopped.

The trap is how our leaders in power have thought about this issue. You have heard the analogy used that the state should be like a household and live within its means. If you as a person had budget issues you’d cut spending. Well that makes sense if you are a household. But name me one BUSINESS that would use that strategy.

Our leaders are thinking about the problem wrong. A business would simply get a loan and GROW their way out of it. Heck many of our elected leaders have businesses of their own. And they would never do that for their own businesses. They would invest in themselves because how you think about running a business is radically different than running a household.

WV is experiencing some good economic news this year. But I have read all the economic reports from both conservative and liberal economists. And they all say the same thing. Yes we’ve had economic growth but its all being driven by natural gas pipeline construction. And the pipeline is almost complete. Only 7 out of 55 counties had economic growth last year. All in the panhandles, all in shale country. 7 out of 55. Know how many jobs were added in the other counties? Only 300. That’s 6 jobs a county.

That’s why I support a massive investment program, spread throughout ALL areas of WV. We have seen in this state with pipeline construction, with our current batch of road construction, that investing in ourselves drives economic growth. In fact it’s the only thing that does. West Virginians deserve an economy that is as good as everywhere else. And this is how we get it.

Let us not forget that the Labor Movement was so pivotal in American History that an entire holiday was declared to honor the American labor movement and the power of collective action by laborers.   Some people are bashing the Labor Movement right now and I thought it was a good day to remind them of all the benefits they enjoy that Unions fought for.  And no one, Conservative or Liberal alike, wants to go back to the way things were before unions transformed the American Workplace.

I’ll be out and about celebrating Labor Day and the contributions to our work life that Unions have provided.   I encourage you to do the same.  Some benefits you enjoy that Unions fought for:

1. Unions gave us the weekend!
2. Unions Gave Us Fair Wages And Relative Income Equality
3. Unions Helped End Child Labor
4. Unions Won Widespread Employer-Based Health Coverage
5. Unions Spearheaded The Fight For The Family And Medical Leave Act

–from a short article by Think Progress.  Click here to read the full article.  

Hague for WV Senate
–Change is Coming.

1. Economic Development. Economic Development is the #1 issue facing West Virginia. It is the cause of our population drain and the root cause of the opioid crisis. West Virginians simply don’t have the opportunity for high value employment that other areas of the country have. As such it is unconscionable for Legislators to spend time on ANY other issue. I will vote NO on any issue not directly related to economic development. I make a campaign pledge that I will vote No on any issue that does not directly relate to economic development.  I define those as bringing in more capital from out of state, increasing business development in state, and education and workforce development.  And I encourage all other Legislators to join me in this pledge. In normal times such issues might be a good use of Legislators time. But West Virginia is in crisis and it is high time a sense of urgency and expediency filled the halls in Charleston.

2. Big Ideas, Big Goals. I don’t think it’s acceptable for WV to be 49/50 in this nation. I don’t want to be 49th, or 45th, or even 40th. WV has the best people in the nation in terms of culture, hope, community spirit and all the other things that make a place “home”. What we lack are jobs. We lack economic opportunity. And we could have had this but we lacked the right leaders, leaders with the vision and the will to make it a reality. I imagine a WV where our youth don’t flee the state for greener pastures. I imagine a WV that is an innovator, where other states come to learn from us. I imagine a WV that LEADS the nation in job creation while still maintaining the values that make us a unique people—hope, community, generosity. I don’t think we have to settle for second best anymore. Not in our leadership, not in our economic prosperity. Tinkering around the edges is not going to work. We need wholesale, seismic changes. And that requires a brand new mindset and brand new leaders.

3. Accountability. WV already has many of the government systems in place for economic development. But they aren’t working. They are too disconnected and staffed with career bureaucrats with no incentive to change the system. And absolutely no one is concerned with efficiency. Combine them, streamline their functions, and have a small group of Legislators work with the agency heads to increase efficiency, destroy bureaucratic roadblocks, and get the job done. Government can work speedily – and right now WV needs its government to be an asset and a help, not a roadblock.

These are the big 3 issues that I will address in the Senate. Click on the Platform link above to see a full list of proposals, detailed discussions, everything you might need. And while there consider volunteering to help! This is not a campaign where “I” will be doing anything. “We” are what is necessary. And in order for WV to experience a system wide change WE need to all work together and insist on change. Change in our representatives, change in our laws, and change in the outcomes we expect. Politicians don’t rise to the challenge, they fall to the level of expectations the public has. And we need to demand better of those we select to represent us.  Only then will true change happen.

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” – Plato

 

Hello all.   Welcome to my blog.  Here I hope to provide a sense of who I am, how I would resolve situations of government, and in general let you know how I would govern.  Before I decided to run for office, myself and a few politically included friends would often joke that it was time to grab our pitchforks and torches and demand change from the Legislature. I have seen two episodes in the last few years that show government can act responsibly and quickly–the water crisis and the teacher’s strike.  But it took the people, acting as one, threatening to end politicians’ careers to make it happen.  And I think politicians should always be afraid for their jobs.  Far too often our political “leaders” view the public as someone to discount, lie to, throw some red meat to, and expect them to take it.  I think that the only way for permanent, systemic change in WV is for the public to stay engaged, active, and very aware of what is going on.  And I promise when elected to make that easier to do. 

Whenever the public demands meaningful change the same pattern is repeated:

1.  The people are ignored.
2. Then the people in power declare that the people are ignorant and unknowing of the complexities of the problem.
3. Then when the demands increase those in power attempt to discredit those advocating for change.
4. Then they try to punish people and cowe them into submitting.
5. Then when those in power realize that yes, this is serious and no this isn’t going away, then they run scared to give in to the demands.
6. Wait a few months then take credit for solving the problem.

Here are some real examples from the Water Crisis and the Teacher’s Strike.

“We’ve got this amazing water filtration system and yes the water smells but it’s absolutely safe.  Here I’ll drink a glass and show you.”

“Yes we’re having an influx of people going to the ER for rashes.  But we think this is just overuse of hand sanitizer and we’d encourage people to realize the water is safe.”

“This entire strike is being agitated by a few union leaders, not the teachers themselves.”

The Attorney General gave a press release where he said the strike was illegal and he stood ready to take legal action against striking teachers should the Legislature wish.

An attempt was made to take away the pensions of the union leaders.

A law WAS PASSED that made it harder for Unions to collect fees.

And a slew of Republican politicians have taken credit for raising the teachers’ salaries when it took a work stoppage to force them to.  They were the problem that needed to be overcome, not the solution.

One last note.   You see politicians … most politicians that is … are only concerned with staying in power.  You find a politician that is willing to give up their job for something they believe in —  reelect that person.  And because of this politicians cater to those who most of the time can secure their reelection.   Political insiders, business leaders, wealthy donors, etc.  But in a democracy the people hold the absolute, final power.  And while it is not often wielded, it overcomes every other form of power out there.  I have seen it wielded twice in the last few years.  And I have seen politicians run cowering away when this power was deployed.  I don’t think it should take the mobilization of public power constantly to secure change and I would like to work to make the public’s voice heard more powerfully.  But never doubt your power to affect change.   Never doubt that absolute power is vested in the people in this country.  Never doubt that each and every one of you is a powerful force for change.

So why Pitchforks and Torches?  Because the threat of that is what makes change happen.  A people engaged, aware, and active is a powerful thing.  And I look forward to helping West Virginia become that and realizing their true power.