Mark Millican
markmillican@daltoncitizen.com
DALTON —
CHATSWORTH — Tom Starnes says if Murray County doesn’t change the economic decline it is experiencing the county will soon be “choking to death.”
The county manager who has watched over Murray in an administrative sense since the term of Jim Welch began as sole commissioner began in 2005, Starnes has now been tapped to head up the new Office of Community and Economic Development under present Commissioner David Ridley.
“They haven’t hung me with a title yet,” he joked at Thursday’s meeting of the Rotary Club of Chatsworth-Murray County. “But I can tell you it’s a one-man office.”
Starnes’ responsibilities as county manager will be distributed among other leaders in county government for the time being, Tommy Parker, said finance director, said, while Starnes focuses on implementing suggestions put forth by the Market Street Services consulting firm’s economic development plan. The Murray County Industrial Development Authority paid $123,000 to Market Street for the plan that utilized input from local business, education, social services and faith community leaders.
“I feel like we’re at the forks of the road where we have to make a decision,” Starnes said. “Will we accept the slow decline in the community, or will we dedicate ourselves to a brighter future? Right now, we’re dying on the vine.”
He mentioned the warning signs: 12 percent unemployment, a decrease in the county’s population showing that workers are moving away, an increase in businesses shutting their doors, a shrinking of per capita income and “retail leakage.”
“Unfortunately, I come today with a somber message, documented by the Market Street Strategies findings most recently,” he said. “Without change in certain trends — if we do not change those trends — we are choking to death.”
But Starnes sounded a lighter note when he expressed that “there are a lot of things we can do that don’t have a big price tag on them.” He said committees would be unveiled at an economic plan implementation meeting on Sept. 14 at Veterans Memorial Park at 3 p.m., including a business sector, education and workforce implementation groups, and a volunteer network that will be formed.
“This will be a long, arduous process — three to five years,” Starnes cautioned. “But it’s time in Murray County for the rubber to meet the road. We’ve analyzed, we’ve studied and now it’s time to go to work. We owe it to the community, to our youth, to our children and grandchildren. The commissioner’s office, Walmart, Lowe’s or Home Depot will not make this happen — we have to make it happen.”
He noted a “couple of things” that were discovered in the Market Street analysis that the community would “like to see.”
“People want a ‘big-box retailer’ and they want to see growth in the health care area,” Starnes pointed out from the report. “But the next sentence says, ‘Murray County is not positioned to do either.’ New businesses select us, we do not select them. We must make ourselves attractive to businesses and retailers.”
To get up to speed, Starnes said he has met with representatives from Georgia Power’s economic development team and the state departments of Community Affairs and Economic Development.
Parker said there will be no new costs to the county with Starnes taking the position, and that his salary would stay the same. When the county gets in a better economic position, a professional economic development director will be hired with help from the cities of Chatsworth and Eton, the chamber of commerce and the Industrial Development Authority, he said.
“We want to carry on with our strategic plan that came from Market Street Strategies, and kick off our goals from that initiative,” Parker said. “One of those things was to have someone devoted to economic development, to help us achieve those goals, until we can hire an economic development director.”
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Plan implementation kickoff is Sept. 14
A meeting to kick off the implementation phase of the Market Street Strategies economic development plan adopted by Murray County will take place on Sept. 14 at 3 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Park on Hyden Tyler Road. The public is invited to attend. For more information call (706) 517-1400, ext. 311.
