{"id":1740,"date":"2011-07-19T10:25:59","date_gmt":"2011-07-19T14:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/here-its-your-hot-potato-vlcia-to-andrea-schruijer.html"},"modified":"2011-07-19T10:25:59","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T14:25:59","slug":"here-its-your-hot-potato-vlcia-to-andrea-schruijer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/here-its-your-hot-potato-vlcia-to-andrea-schruijer.html","title":{"rendered":"Here, it’s your hot potato —VLCIA to Andrea Schruijer"},"content":{"rendered":"VLCIA has its first regular meeting with its new executive director today,\n5:30 PM, \nin the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street<\/a>.\nThey’ve lobbed the biomass hot potato to her.\n

\nDavid Rodock wrote in the VDT 14 July 2011,\n\nIndustrial Authority welcomes new director<\/a>,\n

\n\n<\/a>\nWhen it comes to the proposed biomass facility and maintaining a healthy\nrelationship with the Georgia Department of Economic Development,\nwhich assisted the Industrial Authority in attracting the project,\nSchruijer believes staff and board members will be able to work through\nthe situation.\n

\n“With economic development, it can be difficult to juggle a lot of\ndifferent items,” said Schruijer. “It’s a balancing act to make sure\nyou have all the parties involved and educated on the situation. The\nDepartment of Economic Development was there to help us recruit the\nproject and they did just what they were supposed to do. In fact, they\nwent above and beyond their duties by brushing over this project with a\nfine tooth comb. We worked with them and they worked with us. It seemed\nlike a good project, and I think we’ll be able to work through this,\nmaintain a good relationship with them as long as we keep the avenues\nfor communication open.”\n<\/blockquote>\nThat sounds like Industrial-speak for they’re going to\n“move on to”<\/a> things that do work.\nHowever she chooses to phrase it, it’s about time.\n

\nRegarding transparency:\n\n\n

\nAmong these is streamlining the website to allow prospective industries\nand partners to easily navigate available resources and opportunities\nin the area.\n

\nShe also hopes to improve the transparency of operations for citizens\nbut insists that some limitations will have to be in place to protect\nthe interests of potential investments.\n

\n“It’s important for us to be transparent in the eyes of the community and\nfor them to understand what we’re doing to push economic development,”\nsaid Schruijer. “It’s twofold, however. People are looking at us all the\ntime. If a company or a competitor is able to see meeting minutes online,\nthen that could be a red flag in that the business confidentiality is\nat risk. We want to make sure the information is readily available,\nbut we also want to be cognizant of our customers and their confidential\nmaterials.”\n<\/blockquote>\nWell, I give them credit for getting this story about her in the newspaper\nright away, and for putting it on their own website.\n

\nNot so much for still stonewalling on the minutes.\nI’m sure with a VLCIA attorney and an attorney on the board they can\nmanage to approve minutes that don’t give away the store.\n

\nThe article is well worth reading, including things such as this:\n

\nAlso, she noted that Moody Air Force Base, Valdosta State University\nand Wiregrass Georgia Technical College will play an important role in\nfuture growth in the area, but she further stressed the necessity of\nmaintaining an educated and skilled workforce in the area. On her list\nof things to do is speak with Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce\nPresident Myrna Ballard and staff members about implementing new programs\nto attract knowledge-based jobs and retain a high-quality workforce pool.\n<\/blockquote>\nYes, please.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VLCIA has its first regular meeting with its new executive director today, 5:30 PM, in the Industrial Authority Conference Room, 2110 N. Patterson Street. They’ve lobbed the biomass hot potato to her. David Rodock wrote in the VDT 14 July 2011, Industrial Authority welcomes new director, When it comes to the proposed biomass facility and […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[120,14,15,2,21,3,133,178,1811,501],"tags":[8738,8705,847,232,8700,8749],"class_list":["post-1740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biomass","category-economy","category-education","category-government","category-planning","category-transparency","category-vdt","category-vlcia","category-vlcia-19-july-2011","category-wiregrass-tech","tag-biomass","tag-education","tag-jobs","tag-minutes","tag-transparency","tag-vlcia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-s4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}