Traditionally, lobbyists have worked to secure positive votes and bills from key legislators. The organizations that employ these lobbyists benefit from these votes and bills.

Lobbyists achieve successful results by being experts on the issue, assisting legislators by helping write bills and making donations to the legislators’ re-election campaigns. There are at least two very large examples of lobbying efforts in Rowan County over the last 10 years.

Currently, there are several nonprofit organizations that represent N.C. counties and municipalities in our General Assembly. The Rowan Economic Development Commission has access to grant writers, and I am sure that there are others. Many times, the hardest part of securing monetary grants is identifying the right ones and then getting the support for it.

Instead of hiring a lobbyist, why don’t we put some pressure on our representatives in Raleigh to work for all of us. Better yet, let’s vote in some new representatives. Your current representatives could not even pass a budget last fall. Therefore, they did not get the project money that they asked for.

In closing, I would ask that, if the commissioners move forward, they rename and modify the job description. I am fairly sure that folks do not want to pay a lobbyist to donate to any one’s campaign.

— Joe Fowler
Salisbury