Last Call for Needles, California?

News about Needles, by the Needles Desert Star California is on-line, this is how many of us receive our news about the area. This is apparently a town presently in the State of California that has a lot of telecommuters, people who travel on-line to work in communities such as the Silicon Valley, or Silicon Alley, or Phoenix.

Needles was a thriving tourist rest area, watering hole, and Route 66 stop off; however, this is no longer the case. Apparently, some area locals are moving towards doing something to benefit the town of Needles, which is a border town in San Bernardino County, California - to both the states of Arizona and Nevada.

Enterprise zone study to move forward, by Marj Dario, Needles Desert Star is the source for this information, I am not making this up, people are now actually formally moving towards this possibility. If you doubt me, please, read the article, the link is right here on this page for you to use.

This amazing little proposal being done at the local, and possibly other levels of government, might not be so little. A committee in the works proposes to study what would be for the economic and sociological benefit of the town of Needles, California. The chairperson to this committee is Bob Rath, someone who I have not spoken to, yet, however, who is named in the article appearing in the Needles Desert Star.

The article refers to the community's economy as stagnating, which is a sly understatement, regarding Needles. Hotel lodging is still a bargain, and so are room rentals - telecommuters, isolated from the impact of the local retail environment, do not feel the effects of a lack of performance in that sector of the economy. Presently, the entire United States is undergoing variable changes due to massive changes in the infrastructure of the distribution of goods and services from the manufacturer or the farmer to the consumer; mainly called the Internet, or information highway. Evidently, Needles has not been benefiting overall from this. Needles is a lovely community.

Here is an exact quote from Marj Dario's article, published by the Needles Desert Star. "The committee then began weighing the pros and cons of annexation. Among the comparisons-by-state were fuel taxes, minimum wages, workers compensation rates, property taxes, employment, state funding and other government regulations. Some were positive, some negative. Furthermore, legislatures of each state, California included, would have to be convinced of the benefits of annexation. It would need to be a win-win situation all around." Annexation means leaving California and going to another state, much like a water droplet leaves a cloud when it falls to the river. The water droplet secedes from the cloud and is annexed by the river.

Water, which Needles presently receives from the lower Colorado River, as does much of the San Bernardino Valley, Imperial Valley, San Fernando Valley, as well as Los Angeles, is presently distributed through the state of California; via something called "water rights". Legal terms would be applicable to anything happening regarding the supply of water, which would then be under the regulation of Arizona or Nevada, which would then be supplying the water rights to the entire Colorado River for that segment of the Colorado River.

Excuse me for breezing through the other points of the article, such as a change in education, a change in wages (lower), a change in taxes, a change in regulations and laws, a change in employment certifications - however, the water rights issue is something that should wake up the folks in Sacramento. Hello, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, can you hear us, we need help here in Needles, California. Water engineering regulations are taught in Sacramento, California, water treatment is something that I even studied how to do primary and secondary treatment of.

That is what this committee is saying to me, we are surrounded by tax dollars and monies from casinos based in Nevada, and resorts in Arizona - we have no major employers, we have nothing to work with, we, here in the town of Needles have not entirely given up, however, we are under a lot of pressure, and we are not receiving much, if any attention from our people in the State Government offices. This is the last call here, either the folks in Sacramento are going to pay attention to us, and give us something like what Ethel M has, a garden grown entirely from the wastes of the factory, which are used as fertilizer, or we are going to go elsewhere to find our sustainable growth technology.

If the people of Needles, California are willing to accept a lower wage, there must be something offered in exchange, such as possible increase in employment, technology, or sustainable growth.

Enterprise zone study to move forward, by Marj Dario, Needles Desert Star