VIEW THE LINK LIBERTY STRATEGIC PLAN DRAFT
Boyette Strategic Advisors presented a draft of LINK Liberty, a comprehensive plan for economic success, to the Liberty County Development Authority Board on February 28.
LCDA engaged Boyette, an economic development consulting firm, last summer to develop the plan. The Boyette team has deep knowledge of high-performing economic development organizations and communities across the US, including a long history of work in Georgia and regionally with projects in Bryan County, Bulloch County, Effingham County, and Chatham County. Del Boyette once served as Deputy Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism, as it was called then. He later led the Incentives division of Deloitte.
LINK Liberty is being delivered by his team after months of research, data analysis, site visits, community tours, and input from more than 400 people in interviews, focus groups, and surveys. The plan represents a collective vision for the future to think about, organize around and pursue. It proposes that we explore how we might build upon things already underway, do some things differently and seize this chance to elevate this place and all its people.
It requires openness to new approaches, new ideas, and new partnerships or approaching existing ideas and efforts with new energy. It calls us to stay positive and look for ways to connect and contribute and resist common, less productive responses to change that can limit progress.
Times do change. Let’s not be left behind or with less than we deserve.
The LINK Liberty plan includes things completely within LCDA’s authority to implement, and yet, much of what is proposed requires community partnership. It does not suggest that LCDA try to do the work of other entities. It asks everyone to explore how we can collaborate to increase overall benefits and results; what resources, experience, connections, and talent might be combined for the greatest success.
Economic development requires all of us. It includes many things; education, housing, transportation, roads, utilities, planning, zoning, permitting, business climate, retail development, entertainment, visitor experience and attractions, culture and arts, natural resources, and the overall look, feel and quality of a place; to name just a few! So, although “economic development” is in our name, we cannot advance all that it is by ourselves.
The five-year LINK Liberty plan will evolve and change as we all embrace and advance our parts of it, to make it our own. It is meant to provide a path to success without limiting any potential. And while it provides direction, it does not dictate.
The professionals at Boyette are experts in their field but they do not live here. They acknowledge there may be existing programs with which they are unfamiliar, or local contexts not fully understood. A recommendation successful elsewhere may not work in Liberty County. And that is okay.
What we cannot afford to do is allow these kinds of small things to prevent us from doing the big things that LINK Liberty to a better future.
Copies are of the draft plan are available at the Liberty County Development Authority Office, 425 W. Oglethorpe Highway or online at comegrow.global/strategicplan. The staff welcomes productive thoughts and ideas. To provide feedback in writing, please email info@comegrow.global.