This week, both the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners and the Wilmington City Council are taking a look at what’s next in preparing the county for future economic development.

At Monday evening’s commissioners meeting, the board resolved to accept the Pathways to Prosperity report from Garner Economics that was delivered to the county in April after a months-long study by the Atlanta-based firm. Commissioner Beth Dawson, who said she disagrees with some of the report’s recommendations, moved to amend the resolution to an acceptance of the report only, eliminating the statement “endorse the implementation of” the report. Her motion failed to gain a second, so commissioners passed the full resolution as originally written.
 
A similar measure comes before the city council Tuesday evening. Mayor Bill Saffo said he hopes that the council members will accept the report.
 
“We’ll then ask the city manager – and his counterpart in the county, Chris Coudriet – to formulate a process to prioritize the report’s 21 recommendations,” Saffo said. “When they come back to the city with those priorities, I hope the city council will have a say as to how it rolls out. We want to make sure the city council is part of the process, and that we can find some … things we can agree on [with the county] and start working on.”
 
Saffo mentioned that the city and county would form a committee to pursue agreed-upon recommendations, saying that the committee could possibly have five to seven members.
 
At Monday’s county commissioners meeting, Dawson expressed her preference for having half of the committee’s members chosen by the county and half by the city. She also said she wants the committee membership to be “well rounded,” with representatives from area nonprofits as well as the business community.
 
One of the Garner Report recommendations that could encounter some resistance, Saffo said, is the one that recommends that economic development authority reside primarily with the city and county. Because information on recruiting efforts would be open to media scrutiny if the economic development agency were part of government, the lack of confidentiality could turn potential new companies away, he said.
 
Saffo also mentioned that the city’s and county’s efforts to implement Garner recommendations would obviously move ahead without changes to the county’s special use permit (SUP), since a vote to amend the SUP failed at Monday’s commissioners meeting. Commissioners chairman Woody White and commissioner Tom Wolfe voted to amend the permit; Dawson and commissioner Jonathan Barfield voted against the amendments. Commissioner Brian Berger was absent from the meeting.
 
Some in the business community have said that the current SUP is too vague and deters businesses from locating in the county. The Garner Report recommended eliminating the special use permit or making significant changes to clarify it.

The Wilmington Chamber of Commerce released a statement Tuesday afternoon expressing its disappointment with Dawson's and Barfield's votes against the SUP modifications.

"At no time did the Chamber ask for the existing SUP process to end, but the Chamber does believe revisions are necessary," the statement reads.  "Our concerns continue to revolve around the constant feedback we are receiving from businesses and site selectors that New Hanover County will not be on the list of considered locations for investment due to the lack of specificity of the County’s Special Use Permitting process.  They have provided an objective, independent assessment of existing barriers to business entry and sustainable job growth within our community."

After citing a loss of nearly 2,000 manufacturing jobs in the county from the end of 2002 to the end of 2012, the chamber statement continued, "As a community, we need to work to strengthen our tax base so that the schools, roads, and other amenities our fellow citizens deserve can be paid for. We need to be proactive in making our community more business friendly, not hope to prove the site selectors wrong. We feel confident they are not." 

Saffo said that an economic development priority, to him, is providing infrastructure – primarily water and sewer – to potential industrial sites in the unincorporated county, which was another Garner Report recommendation.
 
“Will the business community support that?” Saffo asked.
 
He also expressed concern at the possible disappearance of incentives for attracting businesses.
 
“I was disappointed that Jay Garner did not include discussion of incentives [in the report],” he said. “Incentives continue to play a vital role in attracting businesses, and [the state] is looking to possibly eliminate them. Elimination will result in the loss of potential clients looking at our area, while South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia will continue to get them.”

Referring to what he termed a “glaring fact,” Saffo said that Garner and others have outlined what it takes to make an area attractive to companies and so-called knowledge workers, while state cuts to education and the possible elimination of incentives make North Carolina communities less appealing.
 
“If we don’t start bringing in more companies, we will continue seeing the same low-paying job growth we have,” he said.