A group of New Hanover County and City of Wilmington elected officials chose six economic development issues Tuesday as the most important ones for the region that could be explored the most expediently.

Some New Hanover County commissioners and city council members met at the New Hanover County Executive Development Center on Military Cutoff Road for four hours Tuesday to discuss what to do next with the recommendations outlined in an economic development report from Atlanta-based consulting firm Garner Economics, which found the area lacking in efforts to attract businesses.

To whittle down the 21 recommendations in the more than $105,000 report, the officials used an informal method of “voting” with Post-it notes on posters to choose the first concerns to address initially. They also chose who would take the lead in coming up with potential ways to tackle the six issues.

The six Garner Report recommendations discussed at length Tuesday were:

• Creating a micro-marketing alliance between New Hanover, Pender and Brunswick counties, with the lead going to county staff
• Advocating for the continuation of state incentives for the film industry, with the lead going to the local film commission
• Better supporting small and new businesses with increased communications and identifying resources, with the lead to be shared by the city and county staffs
• Advocating for a realistic and sustainable incentive policy, the lead going to the city
• Making the case for sustainable funding to improve economic development programs, to be led by the county
• And rebuilding and/or adding existing infrastructure, particularly the extension of water and sewer service along the U.S. 421 corridor, to be led by the county

In the area of a three-county alliance, officials said one of their concerns moving forward is the need for the support of Brunswick County. 

“They’ve been trying to get Brunswick County to buy in or even join their group for I don’t know how long, and that hasn’t happened,” said Wilmington city councilman Neil Anderson, referring to Wilmington Business Development, the private, nonprofit organization under contract for economic development services with Wilmington, New Hanover and Pender. “We ought to try to get Brunswick County on board, and then the doors open for WBD.”

But funding is another critical problem, said city councilman Charlie Rivenbark.

“The last thing that economic developers need to be worried about is going out and raising money amongst the business community,” Rivenbark said. “We’re woefully inadequate in our community; we always have been. They need to be funded and funded properly.”

In the end, the recommendation from New Hanover County Board of Commissioners chairman Woody White that county staff take the lead on the alliance issue found favor with the group. 

In the area of film incentives, city and county officials stressed the need to continue letting legislators know how dire the loss of the program will be to the region and the state. Officials talked about asking Gov. Pat McCrory to get lawmakers to reconvene their session and make a final decision on film incentives.

“The only influence he has is to make them all drive to Raleigh and decide that they want to kill this industry,” White said.

The two boards will hold another joint meeting after city and county staffs present their assigned plans. Those presentations should occur within the next 45 days, county manager Chris Coudriet said at the meeting.

"We look forward to being part of the continued conversation and hope that it leads to better opportunity for economic development in our region,” Wilmington Business Development CEO Scott Satterfield said at the event.