One of the state’s top economic development officials gave Whitfield County high marks for its development efforts on Thursday.
“Dalton-Whitfield County is the home of entrepreneurship. It is the home of business. It is the home of industry. It is the home of growth,” said Gretchen Corbin, deputy commissioner for Global Commerce at the Georgia Department of Economic Development.
Corbin spoke at the Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce’s Good Morning Dalton Economic Development Breakfast at the trade center. And she praised the staff of the chamber and the Dalton-Whitfield Joint Development Authority, saying they are constantly in contact with state economic development officials letting them know what is happening in Whitfield.
“We know that in any given year 70 percent of the jobs created in Georgia will come from existing industries, and Dalton-Whitfield County is a hub for industry,” she said.
Corbin also said the Carbondale Business Park has helped put Whitfield County on the map for firms looking to build new factories. She said numerous firms have looked at the area solely because of the park.
Whitfield County Board of Commissioners Chairman Mike Babb said Corbin’s remarks were “heartening.”
“A few years ago, we asked the state what we needed to do to get businesses interested in us, and the park was at the top of the list,” Babb said. “They told us that when people come to Georgia they want to get up and going in the least amount of time and with the least amount of risk. The park has been certified as ready for development, and that puts us higher on the list.”
The Board of Commissioners acquired the 184-acre site two years ago and has since spent several million dollars developing it. The park landed its first tenant, adhesive maker XL Brands, in 2011.
Corbin noted that Georgia landed two major economic development projects this year — the planned Caterpillar plant in Athens-Clarke County and the planned Baxter International plant in Stanton Springs — because of the large industrial parks in each area.
Corbin said state officials are listening to Whitfield County and trying to do what they can to make the area and the state as a whole more competitive. She pointed to the General Assembly voting earlier this year to phase out the sales tax on energy used in manufacturing. Georgia is the only state in the Southeast to charge such a tax, and when a commission studying tax reform came to Dalton two years ago, several executives from local floorcovering companies said the tax made Georgia less competitive with other states in the region.
Local News
September 21, 2012
State official says Dalton is taking the right steps for growth
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‘I’ve got to protect myself somehow’
A small house on Gay Street was the scene where Frank Bozzie ran over Horace Morgan with a pickup truck on June 10, according to Sheriff Scott Chitwood. (File photo by Misty Watson/The Daily Citizen)
A man police say was murdered when his attacker ran over him in his yard with a pickup truck told a 911 operator the offender broke in his house and began threatening him.
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