Seeking Support for Job Corps Center in Southern Gila County

This letter is in support of locating a Job Corps center in Southern Gila County. The job corps will bring a myriad of opportunities to this area. It will be a complete package. Some people may say this is a bold statement; however, I am not sure it is much of a bold statement. I believe this is a simple decision making process similar to what individuals, families or businesses should use for events in their everyday lives in that you look at all of the facts, consider and compare the pros and cons of each option and select the best option. An example and correlation - We make daily decisions to use a transportation system such as an automobile or airplane. They get us where we need to go and allow us to be in places and do things that would never be possible if not for these devices. Are there drawbacks, sure. We can get in accidents, people can get injured and they do break down at times-although throughout the last 40 years they have evolved into very dependable pieces of machinery. Because of the possibility that they may fail or we may get in an accident, do we forbid ourselves from using them? Of course not! Throughout the years they have grown safer and more dependable and give us a path to opportunities which would never be possible without their use. Job Corps centers are located in scores of areas across the country. There are hundreds of communities that would love to have this facility because of both its economic benefits and the opportunities it will provide. Not only will it expand our economic base, it will bring jobs and community service to our area. It will help, as is said in the mission statement for the Boys and Girls Club, "those who need it most". Where will we ever get another opportunity to help our children, neighbors or friends in this community change their lives to this magnitude? You should know the facts. Thirty to thirty five million dollars will be spent to build the facility. It will be a clean, environmentally friendly business that will provide 80 to 100 jobs and inject 8 to 10 million dollars a year into the Southern Gila County economy. It will be a boon to our college and education system. This program would help youth and young adults from the ages of 16 to 24. It is a rigorous program. The enrollees in the program must not have a current problem in the courts or be under court supervision, must be and remain drug and alcohol free to start and continue in the program and they will live on the facility for the entire, generally two year program (yes, this can include single mothers and their children). When they have completed this program, they will have learned a skill and will be able to support themselves and their families for the rest of their lives, keeping them off welfare and out of prisons and jails. These facts are hard to dispute. What would the drawbacks be? There will be people who do not finish the program; however it has a 78% success rate. Many state that because of the "unruly element" that may come, we will need increased police and fire services and our quality of life will deteriorate. That is a hypothesis that will be hard to factually substantiate. Any type of growth resulting in an increase in population and economic activity to this extent will need increased services in both police and fire protection. Can the purported problems or increase in services be proven to be because of an "unruly element" brought in by a Job Corp Center? This has not been proven in any other scenario in the states that currently have 22 of this type of Forest Service Job Corps centers. With the recent mining boom, large numbers of people came to the area in search of employment. At least 75% of the applicants failed the drug test at the peak. Some of those wanted these well paying jobs so bad they became "clean" only to slip back to their old ways and fail the random tests later. They lost their jobs and many may have stayed in the local area. Did the public state this caused an increase in crime or left an "unruly element" in the area? No. Did we ask the mines to leave, request them to shut down, or seek not to have any other mining open up in the local area. Of course not! If you list the facts side by side, the positives immensely outweigh the negatives (or the issues we purport to be negative). Our Globe/Miami community must work together to promote growth and provide opportunities. As John Kennedy once so aptly stated, "There are risks and costs to any course of action, but they are far less than the long range risks and costs of comfortable inaction". We have to get rid of that Chicken Little "the sky is falling" mentality. This is a proven program that works, and has evolved, such as our transportation, during the last 40 years into a very positive program with a proven track record. If this was not so, it would not have stood the test of time and public scrutiny in communities throughout our United States, especially in this information age. We will never get an opportunity to help our families and the economy like this again in the future. Please support the Job Corps. Russ Fetterman