Assets, drawbacks come out at first Town Hall

About 50 persons showed up for the first of two town hall meetings being held today at the Bogalusa Senior Center in conjunction with the Louisiana Development Ready Communities (LDRC) program, of which Bogalusa is one of eight participants.

Karen Yates, a community developer for
Entergy, lists Bogalusa's barriers during
the first of two Town Hall meetings held
Monday. (Photo by John H. Walker)

After a welcoming statement by Mayor Charles Mizell and a brief program overview by Sandy Bloom, the meeting was turned over to Skip Smart, project manager for LDRC, who told the group that the program started in 2006 and was designed to help communities be the best they can be when it comes to attracting jobs and growth.

“There are three ways a community can grow business,” he explained. “The first is by attracting outside business, the second is by working with existing business and the third is to promote entrepreneurship.”

Smart said the step now being under taken by Bogalusa is very important because community members themselves participate in the gathering and sorting of data and input.

“This is the process by which a community decides how it will become the best it can be and what kind of community it wants to be,” Smart said. “Does it want to be an industrial community? Does it want to attract technical businesses?”

Smart said, “The process you are in now is where you gather the feelings within the community about where you are.”

Smart explained that the process takes about six months and that the process is designed to develop a 10-year vision of what the community wants and a five-year horizon of where the community wants to be.

“It is,” Smart said, “a very intense effort.”

Smart then brought in Karen Yates, a community developer for Entergy, and Ardyn Thriffiley, a liaison for Louisiana Economic Development for LDRC, who explained the details of how the town hall meeting concept works … breaking the gathering into eight groups in which the participants listed what they felt were Bogalusa’s assets and shortcomings as well as what changes they would make if they had a magic wand and could do anything they desired.

Among the most common assets offered were LSU-Bogalusa Medical Center, Northshore Technical College-Sullivan Campus, the location, the industrial park and the community’s volunteer base. Other assets were available space for development, the VA facility, Bogue Chitto State Park and the community’s location.

There was also consensus regarding the drawbacks, as well. First on the list of each group was Bogalusa’s elementary and secondary education system followed by the lack of a four-lane highway, a lack of pride, continued racial issues and division, lack of a trained work force, deteriorating infrastructure, poor work ethic of many in the workforce and location.

The list of magic wand projects included a revamped educational system complete with active students and participating parents, a four-lane highway tying Bogalusa to I-12 and US 98, an adequate tax base to allow the city the funds to address many basic needs and, in a tongue-in-cheek approach, a magic wand factory.

Thriffiley said today’s input would be gathered and listed in priority fashion to allow for a starting point to include with data collected from both online and paper surveys submitted as part of the information gathering process.