PRESS RELEASE:

Contact: Robert Kellogg, Chairman GCDP. For Immediate Release
Email: rkellogg001@carolina.rr.com Cell: (704)953-8529

PRESS CONFERENCE
Thursday, April 4th. 10:30 am at the Erwin Center/913 Pryor St. Gastonia
Participants:
Robert Kellogg, Chairman Gaston County Democratic Party
Todd Pierceall, Gastonia City Councilman, ward 4
Rev. Pierre Crawford, Moderator Gaston Co. Missionary Baptist Association
Donyel Barber, Executive Director at Family Promise of Gaston County
Chris Thomason, Vice President, Gaston County NAACP
Tammy Cantrell, small business owner/Encaptured & Co.
David turner, small business owner/Loray Media

The above participants invite the local and state media to a press conference to address our combined concerns for the economic future of Gaston County and North Carolina. We as a collective body desire to see a greater emphasis on job growth and economic development as opposed to social and political legislation. We will express our specific concerns; admonish our County Commissioners as well as our Raleigh Delegation from Gaston to focus on our long list of needs: double digit unemployment, increasing poverty, high taxes, challenging education needs, a skyrocketing elderly population, crumbling infrastructure, increased homelessness and a growing frustration among the tax paying citizens of Gaston County. We will also challenge our County and state law-makers to host a combined town-hall meeting in the Highland Community of Gastonia (a predominantly African American community with a high unemployment rate). There are many voices clamoring to be heard, the Highland community is one of them.
Raleigh is busy:
• Slashing early voting
• 2-year waiting period for divorces
• Public ban on women’s breasts
• Dismantling the Latino Outreach office
• Increasing taxes on working families
• Ending straight-ticket voting
• Shredding state contracts
• Rejecting fully-funded Medicaid expansion
• Cutting unemployment benefits
• Usurping local control in your community
• Proposing judges not have to be lawyers
• Voting on the proper way to handle a possum
• Debating whether an adult motorcyclist should wear a helmet
While here in Gaston:
• Double digit unemployment rate at 11.1%
• Gaston slipped five spots in statewide ranking of county health outcomes, from 76th to 81st best out of 100 counties
• The number of requests for emergency food assistance increased 40 percent last year according to The U.S. Conference of Mayors 2012 report on hunger and homelessness
• A growing number in the homeless population. According to As One Ministries Executive Director Angela Dreher
• 8th. highest foreclosure rate in NC. For the month of February according to realtytrac.com
• Gaston County ranks 6th. Out of all NC. Counties in prescription drug overdose deaths, according to the child fatality task force due to prescription drugs
• 8.9% infant mortality rate compared to 7.8% state average

Gaston County has many economic and standard of living issues which are currently negatively affecting our way of life. It is time to focus on our economy, education and standard of living. Leave the politics behind and put “People First in Gaston”