Well, I went to my first meeting of the Midland Development Corporation today at City Hall.
It was... Interesting?
First of all, I was a bit perturbed by the fact that the meeting was held at 8:30am and no previous announcement was made on it. Nor have I seen a schedule anywhere on WHEN the meetings are supposed to be. Is it just me, or should this be an important part of Midland's development? And if it is important, why don't more people attend?
Okay, enough of that.
I was glad to finally put a face to the names. John James, Jerry Morales, Barry Horseman were there along with others. Couldn't see everyone's nameplate, but many were there.
Items discussed:
Ground breaking within the next month on the new building going out in the La Enterada Industrial Park. This is good.
Blake Wallace is in California speaking with prospective businesses that could potentially set up shop in Midland. Hey! That's good news!
New marketing is going on with the MDC. Flyers are being printed up and efforts are being made to make the people of Midland more aware of MDC and their efforts to promote economic development in the city. I wish I had heard more on this, but not much detail was gone into... though I did walk in on the meeting in progress. (Sorry about that.)
But about that: Yes, I got there late, but again... I only had an hour's notice. At 7:30am, I was drinking my coffee and waking up for the day. Finding out the meeting was about to happen didn't give me much time. ALSO, reporters for both MRT and Odessa American walked in at the same time I did (apx. 8:45am). Was the NEWS unaware of what was going on? Don't tell me reporters have to read their own paper to find out what is going on around here.
Moving right along... An item on the docket was approved to hire a law firm to lobby on behalf of Midland in Washington. It was mentioned that progress for Midland was always made right up to the steps of the Capitol, but then stopped there due to other lobbyists (sp?) pushing for their own interests. MDC will be spending $100,000 for the first year to work on pushing bills through Congress that have Midland's ED at stake. I think this is a smart idea, so long as they actually make progress. Only actually hiring them will tell if that is the case. Good luck, guys!
Overall, I'm looking forward to learning more about the MDC. I wish I could see more of what goes on behind the scenes. More importantly, I wish more of what they were doing was communicated to the public!! When I e-mailed Mr. Wallace a week ago, he told me that efforts were being made to do more and that they did have someone on stay in charge of public relations. Gee, wonder who that is? Seriously, I'd really like to know.
Not trying to be difficult or make their job hard, but so much more can be done.
I wish them well in 2005. It has the potential for being an absolutely HUGE YEAR for Midland! Now we just have to drive it on home.
I'll keep you posted as I learn more.
Have a nice day!
7 comments:
I hope you are joking when you print that hiring a lobbyist is a good idea...what are these guys THINKING? Don't they realize a city that boasts a sitting US president, the Speaker of the Texas House, its own Congressman, etc, gives more cachet TO a lobbying firm that it gets back in any meaningful way? And this morning's news report of the City of Midland kicking in half of the fee...don't these guys realize that ALL of this money is coming out of the same taxpayers' pockets? It is truly time for a shakeup in the "powers that be" in Midland!
Hi Katie and thank you for your comments.
My first reaction was yours: tax payers money down the tubes. But, I can see the point to it, despite Craddick and Bush and a lot of pull Midland has, there are other Texas cities involved in economic development who DO have lobbys working against us as well.
Honestly, I'm pretty torn over the whole thing.
But ABOVE all else, I wish more Midlanders were involved. When I showed up to the meeting and it was just MDC, reporters and me... that is when I understood that NOTHING is going to happen unless more people actually get IN-VOLVED. We need to get more people IN. Period.
All I can do is invite others to do the same and show up myself. The rest... who knows?
The MRT was there, but the OA was not. The only other media was Jesse Grimes of KCRS. Also the meeting agenda is published at city hall up to 48 hours ahead of time.
There was an older gentlemen sitting next to me who had a name tag on his lanyard. I couldn't read the name, but I saw the City of Odessa symbol on it, thus I suspected it was someone from OA.
If I'm wrong, I apologize. I've never met Mr. Grimes and have no idea what he looks like.
Thanks for the "heads up" on meeting schedules. I'll track it down.
I believe the next meeting is on the 18th.
The average citizen must become involved in the MDC and it's activities for it to become a legitimate force in Midland's economic development. Right now they are less important than a citizen with good credit who borrows $100,000 to open a local business. They literally have done nothing. All they have done is help a couple of companies that were moving here anyway so they could put their name on it.
"I" am an average citizen and I am involved by going to their meetings. Does that change things for them?
And I gotta tell you, I think they are a little more than "Average Joe Public" with 100k line of credit. They have MILLIONS lined up at their finger tips. If they are so ineffective, why are you letting them having meetings and not showing up to hold them accountable? Hmm??
So, they've been taking credit for work they never did? Humph. Sounds like dirty pool. Whatcha got to back it up? I'm all ears!
Check out today's blog post. Give me the dish and if you can back it up, I'll be sure to give you the credit for it and post it for ALL the world to hear.
You'd be suprisd by just who all reads my silly little website here. ;)
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