Less Fighting About Economic Development...More Working Together!

City Officials and Carter County Tomorrow (which I will refer to as the Carter County Joint Economic and Community Development Board) Officials were interested to hear this past Friday that the Carter County Commission would hear two resolutions at the next meeting Monday morning. One creating the Carter County Economic and Community Development Board and another creating various Adventure Tourism Districts within the County.

While these moves were not necessarily a surprise, we felt frustrated that Carter County felt the need to prepare a resolution to create such a board. Both city and the Carter County Joint Economic and Community Development Board (JECDB) officials have extended our hands to the County ready and willing to partner with them and move forward. We recognize that in a county with less than 60,000 people it will be difficult for either entity or even the Carter County JECDB to afford to tackle large Economic Development projects alone.

We encourage the County Mayor or a representative of his and County Commissioner Representatives to attend the JECDB meetings and take an active role. Set aside what has happened or who was involved in the past and let’s work together to move forward. There is a lot of work to be done, and no time to argue about what has happened in the past.

If improvements are needed, make the suggestion. If changes must be made, start the dialog. Either way, economic development will come to a slow if city, county, and JECDB officials are all not working together to move our entire county forward in one direction. We all may not agree exactly on the structure of the organization, but that can be changed. We may not agree on the effectiveness of the organization, but the board and city officials have been taking a hard look at alternatives to make it more effective ever since Mr. Anderson left.

There is one thing we all can agree on, and that is we all want to bring more jobs to Carter County. Let’s make this our focus and all work together on the JECDB to achieve this goal. I applaud the Carter County Commission for taking a step in the right direction by creating Adventure Tourism Districts. Now let’s all sit down together and determine what the next step we need to take is to bring more jobs to our community. Let’s talk about it!