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An organized front for attracting business to Columbia County took a long-anticipated step forward with the hiring of interim Economic Development Coordinator Brian Little.
Earlier this month the retired St. Helens city administrator accepted the post, which runs through March 31. During that time Little will pen the job description for the full-time permanent staffer who will take his place at the helm of the county’s Economic Development Commission.
A goal, Little said, is to create a “one-stop shop” for incoming businesses. To do so, he is compiling data on the county’s commercial and industrial land for inclusion in an online database.
“A lot of industrial development is not done on the ground but rather though the Internet,” he said.
“Gone are the days when somebody knocks on your door and says ‘I’d like to move my 50 jobs here.’”
Little, who is earning $55 an hour in the position, will also work at finding qualified people to sit on the commission and is seeking money for the agency.
Here in Columbia County the county has continually ran businesses out one way or another. Columbia county officals just do not get it. They charge outragous fees. They denie them signage. They want to see them fail by locating them where no one wants to go. They would perfer to see another company come in and close. All the leaders in the county as well as the planning office needs to be replaced. It has been there responsability to make sure that companys locate here and are making a profit so they will want to stay. We need to find people who will work on bringing in new businesses and help them get a foot hold. The county has ran out countless small companys trying to get started. These companys need to be located along U.S. 30 where they will be easyly seen. This county has one of the highest unemployment rates do to incompentent leadership. Building more homes does not mean more jobs. Just more congestion on highway 30. So the people need to go and tell these incompentent leaders that the unemployment problem here is there responsability and they should not get a paycheck until they fix the problem or be fired by the voters.
Yes. FIRED
(email verified)
Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 10:38 PM
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Re: Former St. Helens official hired to county economic development post
55 BUCKS AN HOUR?! Rita, Tony, and Earl writing checks we cannot cash! A bunch of people with their hands out just passed some STUPID tax measures that will do nothing but at the very least KEEP businesses from wanting to come here.....now we want to throw money to someone to bring business to a county whose residents just voted to tax the crap out of them.
Uh....right.
Good luck with that one.
"Now they want the kicker money......"
(email verified)
Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 06:27 AM