- Gadsden County was given a $59,000 grant to hold meetings with neighbors on what areas they want to see growth in.
- The draft shows ideas on public transportation, agriculture and more.
- Watch the video to see what's inside the draft.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Planning Gadsden County's economic future. I’m Ashley Engle your neighborhood reporter. I’m looking to see what economic development looks like for this county and what neighbors would like to see happen.
It's been six months
Talking to neighbors, business owners and county leaders and coming up with a drafted plan on what economic development looks like for this neighborhood.
“There most recent economic development plan is just nearing its ten-year mark. And the rule of thumb is once it hits that ten-year mark it’s time to refresh.”
A plan Caroline Smith and her team have come up with.
Caroline is the Economic Development Manager at the Apalachee Regional Planning Council.
The county was given $59,000 to have meetings with neighbors to talk and plan a economic development strategy.
The county partnered with the Apalachee Regional Planning council to put this plan together.
“Having this economic development plan means that Gadsden County has a new road map on how to reach their economic development goals.”
The plan was structured by using 6 pillars. Some of those pillars include talent supply and education.
ARPC found that trade, transportation, utilities and farm industries are the largest contributors to its employment sector.
Gadsden is a majority-minority county anticipated to soon become a double majority-minority county—as well as a persistent poverty county. This means the poverty rate has remained at or above 20% for over 30 years.
“It’s more than just stores and office jobs. It’s how we all can make money”
T.J. Lewis is Gadsden County's Economic Development Director. He tells me there is great potential for economic advancement for the county.
"My discoveries are to find out where those places that we are leaking business to outside counties, where we can retain our customers here in our county. So I’m doing a lot of those investigations and figuring out how we can better keep our counties revenue inside our county to help our county grow."
This workshop also discussed how to improve the county's education system, transportation and more.
Neighbors say this plan, if approved will bring a change to the neighborhood, a change that may improve neighbors’ quality of life.
As I mentioned before this plan is just a draft for now. County commissioners will look at what they like and what they want to change for economic development leaders to revise and submit that copy back to commissioners to approve and then send it to the state for acceptance. Click this link to see the drafted plan.
