Longview TX leaders hope branding will boost image

Longview's economic development leaders agreed Wednesday to help this city feel better about itself — and then spread that positive image outside the community.

The Longview Economic Development Corp. board of directors voted unanimously to fund $30,000 toward hiring a consultant who will help Longview understand what it is now and what it wants to be later.

The total cost to hire Tennessee-based North Star Destination Strategies will be $76,000, not including expenses, said Lester Lucy, Longview Partnership board chairman.

He presented the proposal for hiring the consultant to the board Wednesday.

The Partnership, which includes Longview's Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau, hopes the effort will be paid for through a collaboration, with a third of the cost being paid each by the Partnership and local businesses, the city, and the economic development agency, he said. Read more here

OK Leverages PGA Event for ED Marketing

EDMOND — Behind the doors of one of the 17 chalets in the Corporate Village at the Senior PGA Tournament, fans will find there is more going on than just following the leader board on one of the flat-screen television monitors placed around the room.This chalet is shared by seven sponsors and the primary purpose is to bring business and commerce into Edmond, the Oklahoma City area and the state of Oklahoma.Janet Yowell, an Edmond resident and chairman of the Oklahoma Governor’s Economic Development Team, said, “The purpose of the chalet is to support the economic development efforts of the staff to recruit more business for Edmond and the greater Oklahoma City area as well as the state of Oklahoma. More here

Latest Advice from Leak and Goforth

According to statistics provided by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) during a community-preparedness workshop Thursday, hundreds, even thousands of economic-development organizations are chasing a few hundred new and relocating industrial prospects annually.

“As you know,” TVA economic-development representative Phil Scharre told a group of governmental and community leaders gathered at First Southern State Bank, “it’s a very competitive environment out there. It’s important to be at the top of your game.”

Scharre, TVA’s Deborah Cameron and site selection consultants Bob Leak and Bob Goforth led the day-long seminar designed to improve Jackson County’s ability to recruit industry. The seminar was put together by the Jackson County Economic Development Authority in association with TVA and local utility providers.


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Conventional Economic Development "Seriously Flawed" Says Federal Reserve Official

One of the best investments state and local governments can make with their public dollars is in high-quality, parent-involved early childhood development programs, an early education and economics expert told a local conference of educators Thursday.

Arthur J. Rolnick, senior vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said governments, in hopes of job creation, conventionally promote economic development by spending billions of public dollars in subsidies to get private companies to either locate or expand their business.

From a national perspective, however, new jobs aren't created, Rolnick said, they simply move from one location to another.

"The conventional economic development in this country is seriously flawed,'' Rolnick said. "Billions of public dollars are spent on job creation with zero public return. ... This is the wrong way to do economic development.''

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