DA needs private funding for work

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few years ago, Jackson County had several different contacts for economic development. If you were interested in locating a business there, you had no central place to call.

Enter the Jackson County Economic Development Foundation, run by a board similar to Natchez-Adams County’s own Economic Development Authority.

But here’s one difference the Jackson County EDF has made in its three years of existence: a capital campaign that has raised $3.8 million to fund economic development, 65 percent over the campaign’s goal.

Natchez leaders have talked recently about making big changes in the EDA, bandying ideas such as a greater focus on community development. Some have even talked of shifting the city’s funding toward community development rather than economic development.

But if Natchez leaders really want to make the biggest difference for our EDA, they will support the board fully and completely, fund it fully and completely, and spearhead efforts to raise private funding so the EDA can build up its toolbox even more.

With few big-ticket industries in town these days, we might not be able to reach the fund-raising stature of Jackson County &045; at least not yet.

But we need our leaders to stand up and support economic development &045; and we need them to partner with the EDA and with county supervisors to bring jobs to this community.

On Friday, city leaders signed an option agreement with two local partners planning to build a multi-million dollar condo complex on the river bluff. They also agreed to negotiate exclusively with a Georgia company to bring a convention center hotel to downtown.

Those two projects could be a great catalyst for further development downtown, and we’re glad the city is working hard to land them.

But we need to keep that momentum by continuing a partnership with the county and the EDA. We all need to be in this together.