“I’ve got an idea that should allow geothermal energy to be harvested more efficiently than existing mechanisms,” said Dr. David Rockenhurst. “What’s more, it can be set up with minimal seismic disturbance and at no threat to water tables.”

“What’s holding you back?” asked a skeptical Terrence Fui.

“I need a source of investment capital. I’ve outlined the necessarily critical experiments, I just need somebody to help share the risk.”

“I’ve got friends with money looking to invest in new energy technologies, but you have to prove to my team of engineers the system is viable,” replied Roger Hornsley.

“I’ll meet with your engineers tomorrow. I’ve run over the calculations time and time again with the best computer modelers at the university, and we’re sure we can cut down energy costs for the average household by more than half. The installation costs are next to nothing, so households that now spend $200 to $400 on heating in the winter months will have beaucoup income to trickle down into the economy.”

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!

That was only imaginary. After all, that is not the kind of work that goes into making prosperous communities, right? The real news story is that municipal leaders met at a conference with the catchy name GroWNC to “brainstorm strategies to make all facets of life better within a four-county region.”

Approximately 200 people showed up. They were divided into workshops to focus on a particular issue and to nominate two or three people to serve on a steering committee.

Fletcher Town Councilman Bob Davy was paraphrased by the Hendersonville Times-News as concluding, “working together is key to ensuring jobs and prosperity for everyone.” A paraphrase of comments from Transylvania County Commissioner James Chappell is now being paraphrased as having indicated a belief that regionalism, versus traditional local planning strategies, was essential to “moving forward” with different facets of economic development.

Some goals enumerated by the brainstorming include:

  1. Getting more students to graduate. That could mean making a bachelor’s degree even more worthless. Today, it means you probably don’t know how to do basic math or English – unless you enrolled in a government-certifiable program.
  2. How about “establishment of partnerships and development of strategies for job creation”? That translates to – “Let’s have a catered lunch somewhere once a month. We can rummage up guest speakers to justify it. I’ve got the press contacts”
  3. “Effective job training programs that are matched to employment needs.” That could mean, employers should not offer internships, apprenticeships, or any kind of OJT without government MBA’s who specialized in nothing developing guidelines and regulations to help them do it with built-in annual obsolescence. This involves hiring a grant writer to obtain federal pass-through funding for state certification pyramids, awarding pieces of paper necessary to get government contracts, and teaching catchy lingo to weed out old-school workhorses.