by Jack Lee
Aero Union operates a fleet of firefighting aircraft at the Chico airport, but they won’t be for much longer. Aero Union is moving to Sacramento because they have a better deal for them. According to an insider at AU Butte County has made the cost of doing business here prohibitively high.
(Erny Spears shown left) This is exactly what Erny Spears, candidate for supervisor in the 3rd district, has been talking about. He says we need to focus on ways to retain existing businesses like Aero Union and also attract new businesses.
I spoke with Erny about this yesterday and he informed me, right now there is a huge disconnect between the business community and local politicians and he wants to encourage more open communications so local government can stay alert to what is happening in the business community. “This is the first step to working with businesses to help them stay here in Butte County and not be chased off by overregulation and high fees.” Erny said.
Erny said Butte County does not have a good reputation for being business friendly, “We need to fix this before this county is broke.” He pointed out we have a reputation for being a welfare county with high unemployment and this is unacceptable. He blames the Aero Union loss on Supervisor Maureen Kirk for failing to negotiate a reasonable agreement with them to keep them in Butte County. He said, “The airport industrial park is in her district, so why wasn’t she on top of this and working to keep them as a cornerstone business?”
Erny said he was extremely upset that we’re losing an important part of the airport industrial area and then he made it clear this is why he is running. “First, I’m a businessman – I’m not a politician, but, at least understand business and what good paying jobs mean to this county! This is why I want to be your pro-business, pro-jobs candidate. Working together we can improve our local economy and save our jobs and create new jobs with decent pay. Look, we have to be competitive and market ourselves and we’re not doing that! We must make Butte County the kind of place businesses would like to move to and that means streamlining the process and cutting back on the bureaucratic red tape. This is how we can improve our tax revenues and that is the only way we can protect desperately needed services like police and fire. If we don’t we’re going to be doomed to staying a welfare county.”