The
Economic Development Office continues to receive inquiries from
businesses wanting to locate and/or relocate in Charlotte County!
One of the greatest challenges during the past year has been space,
of any size, shape or form because of the storms of 2004. This
applies not only to those new business inquiries, but to the existing
businesses that have been challenged with finding space as well.
With the rebuilding and new construction underway, some of the
space constraints will be alleviated. And that is very good news!
A
recommendation of the FEMA Long Term Recovery Plan was to establish
a collaborative education committee, and thus The Charlotte County
Education Coalition was formed. The Coalition’s first initiative
is a workforce and education needs assessment survey, which is
underway. This is of particular importance to employers to ascertain
the labor demand and in what professions, as well as the potential
for growth in certain industry sectors. The survey will also assist
in identifying training and educational services that are rated
favorably and where improvements are needed. This is of particular
value to the educational providers in that it shows the classes,
training, curriculum that the employers in Charlotte County need
to meet their workforce requirements, not only for the present,
but in planning for the future. Educational providers can be proactive
in their planning to keep Charlotte County students at home and
gainfully employed. If you have not returned your survey yet,
please do so as the information is invaluable in planning for
the needs of the community.
The
planning is underway for Issues ’06: Southwest Regional Delegation
Forum to be held December 16th at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Building on the Issues ’05 forum, the vision of the conference
includes continuing to establish the forum as an annual meeting
of the regional legislative delegation where community leaders
share information and input into critical issues, including legislative
priorities related to those issues. Primary issues are health
care, growth management, transportation, economic development
and work force housing. The steering committee has been convened
to develop presentations on their areas approaching their topic
from the perspective of growth management and how each should
be addressed as the population of Southwest Florida continues
to boom. Charlotte County’s participation in Issues ’06 is important
in order to provide input on our critical issues.
And
you can see, the Economic Development Office did not miss a beat
this summer and are getting ready for the Industry Recognition
Luncheon October 12th!
Betty Williams is economic development manager for the Charlotte
County Economic Development Office (www.PureEconomics.org) or
e-mail at PureEconomics@charlottecountyfl.com.
