Thorne Wants to Clean Up Jal, Promote Businesses Downtown
By John Earp
Michael Thorne has thrown his hat in the ring in the upcoming election for Jal City Council. He says, “Over the past few years, you know, I’ve had a lot of complaints about things that have gone on, so I decided, instead of complaining, I would try to make a change.” Some of the things he sees that need changed include housing. He says, “Housing is one of the biggest things. We’re limited on housing, and the houses that are available are only rented to workers, which was the whole reason for the man camps. So, I feel those houses should go to families, if possible. Okay. And then Main Street was a big thing for me, is we have tons of available buildings, we have people that want to come in and start businesses, but nobody will rent out the buildings they use for storage. So, it’s basically trying to approve things around town.”
Thorne is a family man with a wife and five kids, having lived in Jal for twelve years. He is originally from Las Vegas, Nevada, and says he is “just trying to be more involved in the community, I’ve been the vice president of the Chamber of Commerce for the last eight months, so, I’m just trying to be more involved, make some changes.” He currently works for Jones Contractors as a heavy haul driver. He says, “Honestly, I’m just a normal, you know, working, hardworking guy. I just, you know, just want to make improvements.”
Thorne says, “I’m not sure the legality of, you know, only renting to workers because I feel it’s discrimination in a way, rental discrimination, we’re only going to rent to workers and that’s it. But, I mean, even bring in developers, maybe a new apartment complex on the outskirts somewhere, somewhere for options for workers that don’t want to stay in the man camp. Plus, it gives options for people that want to stay here long term. I’ve talked to a lot of old timers and they tell me how great Jal was at one point. And I just honestly, it would be nice to get it back even close to that. We have several houses that are just falling apart. They need to be condemned. Something needs to be done about them because, you know, try to make Jal look better. And then, yeah, encouraging businesses into the downtown area, that’s been a complaint of a lot of folks for a long time, but I don’t know if anybody’s really been able to do anything about it. Maybe incentives or, you know, maybe, I don’t know how it would work out, but maybe if the city purchased the buildings for them so they can sell them, someone can put in a business or we can rent them out, or maybe some kind of incentive to motivate people to want to rent them out. You know, give people options so they don’t have to leave town for everything.”
When asked, “If somebody you didn’t know were to ask you, why should I vote for you,” what would you tell them,” Thorne said, “It’s just time for a change, and I feel like I’m the person for a change. Okay. I’m very outspoken. Okay. If I don’t believe in it, I’m not going to agree with it. My goals are to bring more business to Jal and confront the housing issues. That’s the big thing, and clean up Jal.”