What now with industry closing, PP director sought?

During recent decades we have come to expect a lifetime of 20 years, maybe 25, from an industry that is lured to Panola County by incentives like ad valorem tax exemption and by providing infrastructure.
By that measure, Batesville Casket’s tenure of almost 40 years in its Panola plant was exceptional, but that matters little in what happens next. Now local government and economic development people will be scrambling to find another tenant whose manufacturing operation might hire some or all of over 200 workers whose jobs will have been eliminated by the shutdown.
Our community will be competing with hundreds of others throughout this country where abandoned facilities might be equally attractive and whose work force equally motivated. It will be a tough sell.
While a search committee looks for a new Panola Partnership director who will then assist the county in its search for new industry, maybe it is time for Panola County to re-examine its overall philosophy of economic development. Otherwise we are just part of a pack of cities, counties and economic development organizations chasing after industrial prospects like male dogs after a bitch in heat. Each tries to outbid the other with higher incentives and more expensive infrastructure offers until finally the winning community has given away the store to land the prospect which then becomes a dubious prize.
Quite frankly, we have no idea how to better compete in that market, but we do have several that would reshape us around the edges.
Among them: An economic development plan that would offer premium incentives for local, home-owned industries. Each time an incentive-lured industry announces that it is leaving town, we are reminded that there are also locally-owned industries that stay here because the principals have a loyalty here, family and otherwise. So when the owners of a locally-owned industry need help to expand, Panola County, the Partnership and municipal governments as appropriate, need to have policies in place that will make it easy to get help with infrastructure and even seed funding.
The City of Batesville has had an economic development revolving fund in place for years that it has used to help local business and industry expand and in some cases, survive. They have made a few loans that recipients could not repay, but successes have far exceeded failures.
Last year the city modified the loan program to assist businesses in preparing for Polar Express. It was successful enough that it has been continued this year.
A similar, county-wide program under the auspices of the Partnership would give that economic development entity additional flexibility to assist existing business and industry countywide.
Another feature that could help promote economic stimulation for the county would be a better understanding of our recreational attractions, especially Sardis and Enid Dams. The City of Sardis recognized the potential in the 1990s when it successfully negotiated to annex the portion at Sardis Dam that includes the marina and its environs.
Recently, during the fine fireworks show on the Sardis Upper Lake that helped celebrate the city’s 150th anniversary, Sardis Chamber of Commerce President Cris Fletcher asked aloud: “Why couldn’t Batesville and Sardis get together to sponsor an activity at Sardis Dam?”
Why not. It has been done before, he recalled, back in the 1950s and ‘60s when a Lady of the Lake was selected during the Fourth of July Water Carnival.
That event may or may not be one we’d want to replicate, but a thorough marketing study to learn what visitors want from Sardis and Enid Lakes and how we could help them better enjoy their visits would could teach us much about these fine recreational facilities that most of us under-appreciate and take for granted.
The City of Batesville is improving the Batesville Mounds site. Soon local and distant visitors will find improved access and facilities. Touring those grounds will be easy for the first time ever.
We are not suggesting that any one of these ideas could come near offsetting the loss of over 200 jobs at a good-paying, Fortune 500 industry, but we are suggesting that efforts to stimulate the local economy should not be limited only to the rat race that attracting industry has become.
To successfully project Panola County as a place where people want to live, work, locate their business or industry, expand their business or industry, go to school, go hunting, fishing, boating, go geocaching, snipe hunting or whatever, we need right now to develop the broadest, most comprehensive approach that collective imaginations can create.
And though none may bring dramatic announcements of dozens or even hundreds of new jobs being created in one fell swoop, at least the Sardis Dam, Enid Dam and Indian Mounds are likely to remain with us.