More than 100 elected leaders from 60 Louisiana municipalities, including 40 mayors, recently participated in a new economic development training seminar that its organizers are hoping to offer again in the future.
Three seminars, including one in Baton Rouge, were presented in March and April by the Louisiana Municipal Association, in conjunction with the Louisiana Industrial Development Executives Association and Louisiana Economic Development. The Capital Region Planning Commission and the Imperial Calcasieu Regional Planning and Development Commission sponsored the events.
Scot Byrd, chair of the professional development committee for LIDEA, helped conduct the seminars, each of which lasted a half day and touched on issues such as new market tax credits, historic tax credits, tax increment financing districts and workforce retention, among others. He says there is really one objective of the seminars.
“To let local officials know—and especially those in the more rural communities—that they really can make a difference in economic development in their communities,” Byrd says. “When we first started discussing these seminars about a year ago, [LMA Executive Director] Ronnie [Harris] was hearing from some officials that the state was getting a lot of accolades for economic development, but that they really weren’t seeing it or feeling it as much on the local level as they thought they should—and why is that? Part of the reason is that some of the best practices that they should be engaging in, they’re not doing.”
Byrd says having a strategic plan for economic development is the first step toward being effective at attracting new businesses and retaining existing employers in any community.
“At a certain point in the seminars I just kind of like to stop things and ask, by a show of hands, how many people have a strategic economic development plan for their cities—and not a lot of hands go up,” Byrd says. “And then I say, ‘OK, how many of you would like to have one?’ And all the hands go up.”
Byrd says he’s currently discussing a partnership with the Police Jury Association of Louisiana to offer the seminars on a regular basis to Louisiana’s elected officials.
—Steve Sanoski
