Roy Copeland Chairman |
Tom Call |
Mary Gooding |
Norman Bennett |
Jerry Jennett, |
It’s not too late to express your opinion to this tax-funded (1 mil of your property taxes + SPLOST funds, for around $3 million a year) appointed board. Follow this link for contact information for the VLCIA board. Or sign the petition online and your signature gets emailed directly to VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer.
-jsq
In a refreshing changes from “jobs, jobs, jobs” as everything,
Andrea Schruijer,
Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
told the Lowndes County Democratic Party meeting, 5 December 2011,
that it wasn’t her job to create jobs, jobs, jobs; it was her job
to create an environment that let jobs be created.
Towards that end, she announced several new jobs at VLCIA,
including a PR and marketing position.
VLCIA Chairman Roy Copeland also spoke and helped answer questions
from the audience, including about
wages,
workers, and
green industries.
Perhaps not shown is her answer to my question about what does VLCIA do to promote new local industry. I believe she said VLCIA looks to the Chamber of Commerce for incubation, and helps once local businesses are established.
Here’s a playlist:
My job: create environment for jobs —Andrea Schruijer of VLCIA @ LCDP 5 Dec 2011
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director of VLCIA,
Monthly Meeting, Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 5 December 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman.
-jsq
The first person I saw going into the
State Legislative Luncheon
yesterday was Andrea Schruijer,
Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA).
She spotted me inside, and said “I want to apologize”.
Surprised, I asked for what?
She said for
the date of VLCIA’s Tuesday meeting being unclear.
She said she had read about that in this blog that same morning.
She said they had recently changed the way they were handling their web pages and hadn’t yet figured out how to update it correctly. Since I was never very impressed with how it was handled before, I readily accepted that as a good excuse. I look forward to the updates. I’m guessing the new PR and marketing person they’re hiring will take care of this.
She also volunteered that they did inform the VDT and it was in the VDT’s calendar. I agreed that that was so; we had checked, and it appears the meeting was legal because of those notices.
She also said she thought she had said Monday evening, “see you tomorrow.” I allowed as how if she did, I missed it.
In any case, I have to say that her predecessor would never have made
that much effort to make amends to a mere blogger.
Once again,
tiny LAKE is flattered by mighty VLCIA,
although in a more positive way this time.
Congratulations on the new industries announced at VLCIA’s Tuesday meeting. Maybe more about those later.
Here’s looking forward to the Strategic Planning Process announced at that same meeting as coming up early next year.
-jsq
own web page and they didn’t post an agenda.
Also, I saw both VLCIA Executive Director Andrea Schruijer
and their Chairman Roy Copeland speak Monday night, and neither
of them said a word about their meeting date being changed to the
next night.
Here’s some irony in the VDT’s story:
Schruijer also discussed the Authority’s plans to move ahead with theWhy ever would people think that?The intention, according to Schruijer and Copeland, is to include community partners in the process as the assessment showed that many in the community think that the various entities work at odds with each other, rather than on the same page, when it comes to economic development.
According to VLCIA’s website: Continue reading
State Sen. Bill Montford, right, congratulates Gadsden County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director David Gardner on the National Solar Power’s massive solar farm project.
With the excitement of a massive solar-energy farm coming to the community still fresh on their minds, Gadsden County businesses are looking ahead to the potential such a project could have on the local economy.I look forward to seeing Myrna Ballard in such a picture. Or Andrea Schruijer.Monday’s announcement by National Solar Power was a discussion topic Wednesday at the “Go Gadsden” breakfast of the Gadsden County Chamber of Commerce. The invited speaker, state Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, told the gathering the project’s impact will extend well beyond the county.
“This is good for Gadsden County, but it’s good for all of North Florida,” Montford said during the breakfast at the Florida Public Safety Institute in Midway. “We believe it’s just the beginning.”
-jsq
Here’s the agenda:Well, shiver me timbers and bless their little hearts! Their new executive director, Andrew Schruijer, remarked at Tuesday’s board meeting that the agenda for that meeting had indeed been posted since Friday. In Citizens to be Heard I readily admitted I didn’t look too hard for it, and expressed astonishment and pleasure at this positive development. Linked from their front page, there’s now an agenda page:Just joking. They don’t publish their agendas!
It has links to agendas for June, July, and August, each with an agenda in PDF. That seems a bit odd for some of those months, when there were several meetings. But, hey, it’s a start!Agenda
Agendas will be posted one day prior to the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority regular scheduled monthly meeting.
Here’s the aganda for yesterday’s meeting. That’s in PDF, so here’s a web-readable HTML version:
Continue readingValdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Agenda Tuesday, August 16, 2011 5:30 p.m. Industrial Authority Conference Room 2110 N. Patterson Street
She’s a former hotel marketing person, according to her LinkedIn account: Continue reading…a unanimous decision by board members to submit a formal offer to Andrea Schruijer for the position of executive director.
Absent from the meeting was board member Roy Copeland.
According to Steve Gupton, authority attorney, the three-year contract will include a salary of $100,000 per year. As with all its employees, the authority will pay seven percent into a retirement fund and 75 percent of health care insurance.
Schruijer, pending acceptance of the offer, will officially start employment on July 8.