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CCEDC COMPLAINS OF 'AMBUSH'
Thursday, November 20th, 2008 -- 10:45 am
Posted by Riley Hebert-News Director
Members of the Clark County Economic Development Corporation complained of being “ambushed” by news the county board cut their budget.
Before adopting their budget last week, the board vote 16-13 to amend the budget to cut $50,000 from Economic Development.
CCEDC executive director Sheila Nyberg went over their revised 2009 budget at a meeting in Greenwood yesterday. She noted it had holes because of the move.
Board members wanted to know if the money could be restored. They were told it would require a ¾-majority vote—or 22 of 29 supervisors.
County Board member Charles Harwick of the Hatfield area said the supervisors’ vote could have had more to do with personality conflicts with Nyberg, than with principle. He encouraged Nyberg and the rest of the Corporation to deal more with facts than hyperbole.
"That's the thing you have to be careful about," he said, "Talking about what you're going to produce. You have to talk about it after you produce it. That's the thing that brings results and that satisfies people as far as the money that's being spent."
But Nyberg had plenty of supporters in the room. Many committee members said she had invigorated the Corporation.
Owen Mayor Tim Swiggum said supervisors should have given them fair warning before making the cuts.
"When something was going to be changed that drastic, they should have given us some warning so we could have done (a presentation). I think it was an ambush. I think it was personal, or whatever...be prepared to be ambushed back," Swiggum said.
Nyberg also discussed continuing plans for an Agribusiness Campus near Owen.
She said, while they couldn’t release names, they’ve had one business commit to building there.
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