Published: August 24, 2008 01:18 am      

Development authority to take meetings on the road

KEYSER, W.Va. — Members of the Mineral County Development Authority are not only looking at new ways they can market the county, but at ways they can promote the authority itself and keep the public better informed as to what it is that they do.

The group is in the process of setting up several meetings during which the authority would leave its normal meeting place on the upper floor of Grand Central Business Center and go out into some of the county’s smaller communities.

The members see the meetings as a way of making themselves and their quest to retain and recruit business more accessible to the residents of the county.

At the suggestion of member Jennie Shaffer, they plan to develop a PowerPoint presentation on their work.

“We can take it to different organizations, or anyone who will listen,” she said Tuesday, adding that any member of the authority could give the presentation to civic groups, governmental bodies or other organizations.

The first community meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Sept. 16 in Burlington, with the exact location to be announced.

Executive Director Mona Ridder hopes to have the PowerPoint ready to debut at that meeting.

The members will then meet in October in Fort Ashby, and a third meeting is slated for sometime in May in Elk Garden.

Authority president Rick Linthicum had suggested taking the meetings on the road at his first official meeting as the new leader of the economic development board.

“When we go out in the public, we get hammered with questions because the public doesn’t understand what we do,” he said.

Ridder agreed that keeping in touch with the public — and with those businesses and industries that are already established here — is a vital part of the job.

“I will be starting visits in November with all our current business people,” she said during their 8:30 a.m. meeting Tuesday.

“Business retention is a big thing to us.”

Further information on the community meetings will be released at a later date.

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