Schoharie County’s future is bigger than five people and 30 minutes a month.
With that in mind, supervisors’ Economic Development Committee members decided Friday to start meeting at 8am and involve more partners: SEEC, the Chamber, SUNY Cobleskill, and the IDA among them.
The Economic Development Committee was organized three years ago under Cobleskill Supervisor Leo McAllister, who retired at the end of December.
One of its major projects was the 2020 Fairweather Report, which identified Schoharie County’s strengths and weaknesses, ranked 24 sites for their development potential, and then laid out a strategy for getting there.
Working with SEEC and consultants The MRB Group, supervisors have narrowed that list to three (see related story) and are looking at which of them to focus on.
That’s something Gilboa Supervisor Alicia Terry, who’s replaced Mr. McAllister as Economic Development Committee chair, said needs all hands on deck.
Ms. Terry told fellow members—Werner Hampel, Cobleskill; Alex Luniewski, Wright; Alan Tavenner, Schoharie; and Harold Vroman, Summit—that she’d like to see the group become a roundtable or clearinghouse for everyone working on economic development.
“We’re small,” she said, “and sometimes it’s easy to loose track of what everyone else is doing. We’re working in silos and we don’t realize we’re often on parallel paths.”
The group has been meeting at 8:30am before the Board of Supervisors’ meeting the third Friday of the month; at Ms. Terry’s suggestion, members agreed to begin meeting at 8am and start bringing in some of those partners.
Though the partners won’t be at every meeting, Ms. Terry said she sees them as often-untapped resources for supervisors—often the first point of contact when someone has a question about a business.
One of the most important members is SEEC—Schoharie Economic Enterprise Corp—and Executive Director Julie Pacatte said they can act as a resource for answers.
“Economic Development is not just one person’s job,” Ms. Pacatte said.
“The more people are empowered, the greater our chance of success. I love the idea of bringing others to the table.”