Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 23, 1994 TAG: 9412230130
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Pat Green eagerly awaits the chance he'll have next spring to give President Clinton and Congress a piece of his mind.
The operator of a Roanoke County business is one of eight delegates from Western Virginia who will take part in the White House Conference on Small Business, scheduled for June 11-15 in Washington.
At the top of the delegates' list is doing away with burdensome federal regulations that cost small businesses time and money.
"The small business is getting killed," Green said. "Every time we turn around, a new law is passed that we have to abide by."
To have eight delegates among the 40-member Virginia delegation to the conference is a coup for the region, said Bud Oakey, vice president of the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce. When a similar conference was held in 1986, Western Virginia failed to send a single representative.
Small businesses are defined by the federal government as those with fewer than 500 employees. That includes 98 percent of Southwest Virginia's businesses, Oakey said.
The region's success this time assures the rural and smaller urban areas of the state will be well-represented at the conference, which could have significant implications for small business, Oakey said. Sixty-two percent of the recommendations coming out of the 1986 conference were enacted into law, he said.
Twenty-six of the state's delegates were elected at a preliminary state conference at Virginia Beach on Dec. 6. The remainder are appointed by the state's congressional delegation.
The region's delegates include Green of Green and Associates, Lynn Miller of Adia Personnel Services, Boyd Johnson of Jamont Press and David Booth of Quality Coffee Service, all of the Roanoke Valley, and Suzy Robertson of Robertson Business Services in Eagle Rock.
Two other Western Virginia delegates are Greg Pourier, general manager of Doe Run Lodge in Carroll County, who was appointed by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, and Randy Laird of Lynchburg, named by Rep. L.F. Payne, D-Nelson County. An appointment by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, has not been announced but will be a Western Virginian. Neither Sens. Charles Robb nor John Warner named a Western Virginian as a delegate, but Warner picked Jay Langhammer of Roanoke, president of Fabricated Metals Industries, as an alternate.
Fairer taxation and more reasonable environmental regulation are the two "hot button" issues Green said he would like to see addressed by the White House conference. Green has been a small businessman for 19 years. He sells automotive products and insurance to automobile dealers and employs 19 people.
Taxes are "just outrageously too high," Green said. "Fifty percent of everything I made last year went to taxes." That's money that could have been put back into his business, he said.
The "dictatorial attitude toward small business" by agencies that enforce environmental laws also bothers Green. A new law regulating the spraying of solvents, which are in the products he sells, will hurt small businesses, he said.
Pourier agreed that environmental and other federal agencies can cause problems for small business. Although the intent of laws may be good, the way they are implemented is sometimes wrong, he said.
He offered the example of a sewage treatment plant his lodge is building. The process of obtaining permits for the plant is a problem because a government map erroneously shows that a mountain stream into which the plant would discharge doesn't run year-round. It has already cost the lodge many thousands of dollars in engineering fees to satisfy the regulatory agencies, he said.
Pourier said the White House small-business conferences should be held more often than every 10 years. "The focus on small business is an important opportunity," he said.
An outpouring of the frustration that small-business operators have, with all the regulations and paperwork they have to deal with, will punctuate the White House meeting, said Johnson, who has owned Jamont Press/Hoppy Copy since 1987. The business, which was started in 1962, has 13 employees.
Johnson wants to ensure that new online information services are made as accessible in rural areas as they are in big cities. He also wants safeguards when government considers taking on work that could be done by private industry to guarantee that tax dollars would really be saved.
Robertson, who operates a business that tries to match small start-up businesses with sources of venture capital, wants to see the U.S. patent and trademark database more readily accessible in rural areas and bank regulations changed so it's easier for entrepreneurial businesses to obtain start-up funds.
Southwest Virginians and the rest of the Virginia delegation will begin conferring through electronic mail over America Online in January. Their first meeting to formulate their agenda for the White House session will be next month in Richmond.
Small business employs 80 percent of workers and receives 10 percent of government's attention, Green said. "This conference is the greatest opportunity small business has had in a long time to say what's on its mind."
by CNB