Magazine article features Cass County cities’ economic development efforts
Cass County’s concept of an area economic consortium bringing together the county and Economic Development Corporations functioning in the four towns of Linden, Atlanta, Queen City and Hughes Springs has earned publication in a state magazine.
The March issue of Texas Town & City, an official publication of the Texas Municipal League, includes the informative article with the headline, “Economy of Scale for Development in Cass County.”
The article was written by Linden’s City Manager Lee Elliott and Linden Economic Development Assistant Director Megan Kirkland.
“We heard in December they were looking for innovative economic development ideas. I wrote a synopsis of what our economic consortium was doing and sent it to them. They thought it good enough for inclusion as an article edited to their format,” Elliott said.
“Our Economic Development Corporation Consortium is innovative and growing in its membership and possibilities. Currently, the EDCC is comprised of the county judge, EDCC directors/staff and EDCC presidents. We are looking to expand, having mayors included in 2023. We meet once per month and rotate hosting sites among the four cities alphabetically.”
The TTC article mentions nine bulleted articles of things the EDCC is doing.
“Some of these were early items for us. I’m excited now about coming months of our meetings. At our next meeting we will have Rebecca Wells, PE, the Area Engineer for the Atlanta TxDOT District, meet with us to explain what they are doing.
“Then in April, we will have Tim Wilson of the Small Business Development Center out of Mt. Pleasant to inform us of service they offer.
“Then in May we will offer a basic training course about how to work with economic development groups. Later in the year, we will go deeper into such things as, one, Chapter 380 application for federal matching funds, and, two, tax abatement procedures. This will all be about working cooperatively to achieve economic growth.”
Over the next months, Elliott said, the success of the EDCC will be how much it grows and helps accomplish growth.