{"id":1995,"date":"2011-05-23T11:14:48","date_gmt":"2011-05-23T15:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/2011-economic-summit-by-vlcoc.html"},"modified":"2011-05-23T11:14:48","modified_gmt":"2011-05-23T15:14:48","slug":"2011-economic-summit-by-vlcoc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/2011-economic-summit-by-vlcoc.html","title":{"rendered":"2011 Economic Summit by VLCoC"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n<\/a>\n

\n\nMyrna Ballard (President, Chamber of Commerce),\nMichael Jetter (Interim Executive Director for the Valdosta-Lowndes Conference Center and Tourism Authority),\nAmanda Peacock (Valdosta Main Street Manager),\nAllan Ricketts (Valdosta-Lowndes Industrial Authority Project Manager),\nJane Shelton (Valdosta-Lowndes Airport Authority Member)\n
\n“Transforming our local economy”\n
\n“It’s the Mix that Matters”\n<\/small>\n<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\nAmber Eady wrote for WALB 18 May 2011 about\n\nEconomic Summit meets to discuss economic health<\/a>:\n

\nCommunity leaders in the Valdosta area came together at the 2011 Economic\nSummit to discuss the economic health of Valdosta-Lowndes County.\n

\nEconomic Summit participants raised substantive questions for the panel\nand shared ideas for moving forward during the facilitated discussion\nportion of the Summit led by VSU Center for Business and Economic Research\nDirector, Scott Manley.\n<\/blockquote>\nWALB then quotes the Chamber’s press release.\n

\nDr. Cynthia R. Tori presented the VSU Center for Business and Economic\nResearch study, Lowndes County by the Numbers: How Do We Compare With\nPeer and Aspirant Communities?\n<\/blockquote>\nThat study sounds very interesting.\nCan we see a copy?\n\n\n
\nand a panel of local economic development\norganizations discussed their economic development strategies and\nsolicited questions and ideas from participants.\n<\/blockquote>\nSee picture for panelists.\n
\n\u201cThe economic development organizations represented here today can come\ntogether as a team and have more impact on our community,\u201d said Jetter.\n<\/blockquote>\nWell, that’s great, although I wonder where other community organizations\nwere.\nIt was invitation-only (I was invited, but was overbooked).\n

\nThere were some good questions:\n

\nLowndes County Planner, Jason Davenport posed the question, why does\nValdosta-Lowndes County lose businesses? Ballard replied, \u201cHaving\na pro-business environment is the most important part of the economic\ndevelopment process.\n

\nThe Chamber has partnered with the local governments on our\nSORT initiative, and the local governments have been extremely\nresponsive. We\u2019re on the right track.\u201d Ricketts replied with an\nanswer regarding maintaining a competitive edge over other communities\nand playing to our strengths.\n<\/blockquote>\nI have to say I like the questions better than the answers.\nI would have liked to hear something said about this point from\n\nthe Chamber’s own Opportunity Central:<\/a>\n

\nNew jobs follow bright and creative professionals…\n<\/blockquote>\nMaybe even something about how to compete with Albany forging\nahead in public (without\n\nworrying about publishing minutes<\/a>\nwith\n\npromoting solar installations in south Georgia.<\/a>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nPlease note regarding minutes\n\nI’m referring to the Industrial Authority;<\/a>\nthe Chamber of Commerce does\n\npost its agendas and minutes online.<\/a>\n

\nThe Chamber has posted a PDF of a VDT story by Dawn Castro 18 May 2011,\n\nEconomic Summit: Valdosta can ‘do better’<\/a>:\nIt quotes motivational speaker\n\nChris Miller of Illuminomics:<\/a>\n\n<\/a>\n

\n“You guys have great leadership here,\nbut in my experience, you could do better.\nPeople here want to do better.\nValdosta has resources and opportunities,\nbut they have to be utilized.\nIf you’re having conversations,\nbut things are not moving,\nyou may need to redirect or change the conversation.”\n<\/blockquote>\nHow about we redirect the conversation by\n\nvoting down the biomass plant<\/a>\nand\n\nnot building a private prison?<\/a>\nThen we could get on with worthwhile tasks.\n

\nMiller’s main point according to the VDT seemed to be\n

\nthat what Valdosta needs is to work as a single entity,\nbecome less territorial in the decision-making process,\nhave decisive leadership,\nan intense desire to do something,\na creative approach,\nboldness of action and communication,\njust to name a few.\n<\/blockquote>\nI would agree on all of those points except the first.\nI don’t live in Valdosta.\nI live in Lowndes County, which has concerns outside Valdosta\nthat most people in Valdosta don’t understand.\n

\nThat and if the Chamber wants a creative approach and communication,\nwhere were representatives of any of the organizations that have\nbeen critical of the way things are done now?\n(Yes, I was invited after some prodding, and it’s nobody’s fault\nbut my own that I didn’t attend.)\n

\nAnyway, congratulations to the Chamber for holding the 2011 Economic Summit.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Myrna Ballard (President, Chamber of Commerce), Michael Jetter (Interim Executive Director for the Valdosta-Lowndes Conference Center and Tourism Authority), Amanda Peacock (Valdosta Main Street Manager), Allan Ricketts (Valdosta-Lowndes Industrial Authority Project Manager), Jane Shelton (Valdosta-Lowndes Airport Authority Member) “Transforming our local economy” “It’s the Mix that Matters” Amber Eady wrote for WALB 18 May 2011 […]","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":[97,120,1113,40,14,21,3,133,178,332,134,204],"tags":[2666,4500,969,8701,847,7,8700,6,4446,8765],"class_list":["post-1995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-cca","category-community","category-economy","category-planning","category-transparency","category-vdt","category-vlcia","category-vlcoc","category-vsu","category-walb","tag-communication","tag-economic-summit","tag-economics","tag-georgia","tag-jobs","tag-lowndes-county","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-lowndes-chamber-of-commerce","tag-vlcoc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-wb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995","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=1995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}