Stokes to reconsider economic-development job
County officials will decide whether there is money to replace director
(Winston-Salem Journal) - As do many rural counties across North Carolina, Stokes County puts economic development at the top of its list of priorities.
But with the retirement today of the county’s economic-development director, county officials say that it’s time to decide whether there’s room in the budget for a person devoted full time to recruiting jobs and industry.
More communities are choosing to create rather than cut economic-development positions, said John Peterson, the executive director of the N.C. Economic Developers Association.
(Winston-Salem Journal) - As do many rural counties across North Carolina, Stokes County puts economic development at the top of its list of priorities.
But with the retirement today of the county’s economic-development director, county officials say that it’s time to decide whether there’s room in the budget for a person devoted full time to recruiting jobs and industry.
More communities are choosing to create rather than cut economic-development positions, said John Peterson, the executive director of the N.C. Economic Developers Association.
posted by BP News Bureau | 12:02 PM
6 Comments:
If the current Stokes County manager is willing to also serve as the economic-development director, why would the commissioners even consider hiring a replacement? Besides, how time consuming is it to recruit fast food joints to King? :)
Economic development is not a proper function of government. This kind of thing used to be handled by Chambers of Commerce, Kiwanis, and other private, community action groups. As is usual with everything the government takes over, the function is no longer efficiently carried out and the people have lost interest in participating.
Stokes County's economy is obviously based on real estate sales of single-family dwellings. There is nothing short of banning all development and restricting sales of homes that the government can do to change that. The vast majority of Stokes County's population does not support an economy based on industry or even large-scale commerce. The real estate economy is nearly self-supporting. Therefore, the position is not useful.
I don't see how any economic development can come to Stokes County with a mountain range spliting the county in half. I don't see the infrastructure in place in Stokes County to have any type of economic development. I'm trying to think of how much economic development that Ron Morgan brought to Stokes County that justified paying him $56,000 a year. That's a pretty high salary for Stokes County government.
Since Ron Morgan's tenure on staff was under the watchful eye of one or more real estate agents and/or developers, I suspect he did about as well as could be expected of him. The real estate establishment in Stokes County has a vested interest in preventing any kind of commercial or industrial development. First, because that kind of development tends to me mutually exclusive with residential development. Who wants to live next door to a factory or a shopping mall? Second, because most of Stokes County's population emigrates every day to go to work, it tends to create a lot of flux and turnover in housing. The only thing a real estate agent likes better than selling a house is selling the same house twice.
No wonder the real estate establishment works so hard to elect their own to serve on the board of commissioners. Having the right people on the board fattens their wallets.
Look at all the new businesses Ron Morgan recruited to Collinstown.
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