Published: July 16, 2008 10:53 am         

Mineral County Development Authority looks to frugal future

KEYSER, W.Va. - With a new president and a new executive director, the Mineral County Development Authority is looking toward a positive future where they open up better communication with the public while operating within the confines of a currently lean budget.

"When we go out in the public, we get hammered with questions because the public doesn't understand what we do," President Rick Linthicum said Tuesday as he opened his first general meeting after taking office.

"It is all of our jobs to provide leadership for the county," he said.

"With all your help," he told the group, "perhaps we can actually retain some jobs in the county and fill the Fort Ashby Industrial Park.

"We have to work together - all of us - in order to be successful," he said.

In an attempt to better inform the general public as to the workings of the Development Authority, Linthicum suggested holding some of their meetings "in several different places throughout the county.

"This would give others a little better access to us," he said, suggesting Fort Ashby, Burlington and Elk Garden as the locations for the satellite meetings.

"We should publicize these meetings and invite the public," Secretary Connie Sutton suggested.

The group therefore agreed to set their regular meetings at 8:30 a.m. on the third Tuesday of every month, but to hold the three satellite meetings in the evenings on dates to be announced later.

Tuesday was also the first general meeting for newly appointed executive director Mona Ridder, who told the group she would be working hard to keep within the authority's budget.

"We are on an extremely tight budget," she told the group. "There is no money for me or anybody else to spend money willy-nilly.

"I'm going to be very, very tight with what I spend money on," she said, noting that if she works to keep the cost of such things as cell phones and office expenses down, "we can then have the money to do what we need to do" when it comes to doing the work of the authority.

Before moving into her office on the top floor of the Grand Central Business Center, for example, the office was downsized, bringing with it a savings in rent.

And while Ridder told the group she opted for a "no frills" cell phone plan as another means of keeping the costs down, Linthicum said he felt some items should not be cut.

"We need to give Mona every possible tool we can to work with," he said, adding that he thought $800 - the total amount budgeted for the director's cell phone - was ridiculous.

Ridder also told the group she has been spending a lot of time during the past week in setting up the Development office, with the help of Sutton and Anne Palmer.

"Our goal," Sutton explained, "is to get the office procedures down so they run smoothly so Mona can spend her time on other things and not have to worry about administration."

Ridder agreed. "Once it gets organized, it will pretty well have to run itself because all these other things take precedence," she said.

Among the "other things" to which she referred were a number of meetings that she held with various key people from throughout the state: Charlotte Weber, director of the Robert C. Byrd Institute, who discussed the planned changes with their machinist programs; representatives of U.S. Windforce, the company currently working on setting up a wind farm on Pinnacle Ridge; and the West Virginia secretary of commerce, in an attempt to get Gov. Joe Manchin involved in "a celebration of what all we have going up here," among others.

Tuesday afternoon, she was scheduled to meet with representatives of Pattonair, an international company interested in moving into the shell building at the Fort Ashby Business and Technology Park.

Other issues which came up before the authority included:

* Palmer announced the authority had received $1,300 in grant money to be used toward the purchase of a lighted sign to be placed at the entrance of the Fort Ashby Business and Technology Park.

Mark Yoder agreed to pursue the development of a solar-powered lighted sign for a cost of under $8,000.

* Members Jennie Shaffer, Polly Jo Hightower and Sutton will form a committee to look into the development of a procedural manual for the Development Authority.

* Ridder said she will be working on updating and correcting the Authority's Web site.

"This Web site has been worthless for as long as I've been on the board," Shaffer said.

Contact Liz Beavers at lbeavers@times-news.com.