KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. –Local lawmakers sharing their thoughts on Governor Patrick Morrisey’s first State of the State address.
Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha
Governor Morrisey gave the address Wednesday night at the state capitol. He talked about the budget, creating a new power center, a little bit on education in the state, and healthcare.
Senator Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, said that he thought the speech was well thought out but there will be something’s he disagrees with.
“He was thoughtful and prepared, he has a direction and a vision, I think for the most part it was a very positive speech,” he said. “Of course, we’re all different and we all have different thoughts and interests there’s a few things in healthcare that we’re probably have to agree to disagree.”
One of the things in healthcare was eliminating the current Certificate of Need process, which he said would allow innovation and entrepreneurship take place in the state.
However, he even though he may disagree with some of the things that Morrisey wants to do, Takubo said that he still is looking forward to working with him.
“He’s very articulate, he tries to plan things out well, so looking forward to helping him with his agenda and I think for the most part positive things will help move us forward and I look forward to seeing it,” he said.
One of the big topics of Morrisey’s speech was combining the state’s energy resources with technology.
J.B. Akers, R-Kanawha
Delegate J.B. Akers, R-Kanawha, said that this portion of his speech caught his attention because he mainly is concerned with economic issues, jobs, and business recruitments.
He says that the announcement of the West Virginia Power Tech Center was great.
“It was music to my ears, the thing I want to see most of all is an improvement to our economy. We’ve had some good economic wins the past couple of years, but I want to see that accelerate and go even faster,” he said. “You know my wife and I have young kids, and we want to see them have opportunities here at home, like all families do. And also, for the people who work here now, we want them to have as many job opportunities as possible.”
He also said that he looks forward to working with Morrisey because he also announced a potential piece of legislation that interests him.
“One thing he talked about tonight is the micro-grid legislation he wants us to work on. What’s that going to involve is co-locating the power sources on the same piece of property where you’re going to build something like a data center,” Akers said. “We can win that, we have the best opportunity to win in that area over any state that surrounds us, so I was extremely excited to hear him make that a priority tonight.”
On the other hand, Delegate Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, 56 says she feels that the session is not off to a good start.
She said that she thinks the 60 days that there in session will be spent on things that won’t make a difference for the state.
Kayla Young, D-Kanawha
“What I’ve gathered so far is that we’re going to spend a lot of time on social issues that don’t do anything for West Virginians in any capacity. We didn’t hear anything about helping to lower prices or anything tangible other than dashboards and portals for West Virginians getting jobs,” she said. “I’m worried that session is going to be a lot of that, and it seems like right now the house and the senate and the governor’s office is already fighting so I think it’s going to be a long session.”
Morrisey has also made it known since before he was in office that he wants to eliminate wasteful spending within the government.
Young says that it feels like an insult to the government employees.
“He made an alludement to the fact that if you think what’s going on in D.C. is wild wait till you see what happens in West Virginia, and that to me is terrifying because what’s going on in D.C. is a constitutional crisis and that’s completely illegal,” she said. “A lot of what he said sounded like a slap in the face to our state workers that there hiding money in places that there all just bad, and that’s not how I feel about us as an employer or our employees.”