EDA Executive Committee ponders strategies, assets and impediments

The Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority Executive Committee met virtually Friday, August 14, to discuss its Strategic Plan. That an economic development strategy must balance vision and process, as well as assets that make a community uniquely attractive to prospective clients versus impediments that would drive them away, dominated the 90-minute discussion.

EDA Board of Directors Vice-Chairman Jeff Browne moderated the virtual meeting attended by Executive Committee members Jorie Martin, Greg Harold, Tom Pattison, and Melissa Gordon, the latter by phone hook up as she drove her child to Virginia Tech to register for their first year of college. So, the topic of establishing a “Project Return Home” as some states and areas have to improve the quality of job opportunities available for the community’s college-educated next generation was of particular interest for her, Gordon told her colleagues near the meeting’s end.

The initial discussion focused on the process by which an updated Strategic Plan would be developed in conjunction with a refined “Vision Statement” for the EDA’s work. Then the committee, along with EDA Executive Director Doug Parsons and Administrative Assistant Gretchen Henderson, delved into the factors that would form that vision. Browne pointed to the County’s geographical location and commercial transportation access to Interstate highways and railroads as a key “Vision” variable.

Greg Harold may be flashing secret hand signals during virtually-broadcast EDA Executive Committee meeting Friday morning. Below, his organizational chart on updating the EDA’s Strategic Plan. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini

Harold presented a draft of an organizational chart he had developed and commented that he is a great advocate of the “KISS” method of planning – “Keep It Simple, Stupid”. Maximum use of available technologies to disseminate information among board members and targeted industries was also cited by Harold as a necessary tool in forwarding the Strategic Plan.

After Gordon noted she did such strategic planning development in her real job, Harold deferred to his colleague’s professional experience for elaboration on the process of strategic planning. Gordon cited the necessity for, not only the development of a comprehensive strategic plan based on a community vision but of regular review to “establish where you are” and how the Strategic Plan is functioning to achieve the desired goals.

“When I look at the Strategic Plan I start very BIG in terms of what is our maximum potential and then break it down from there … to where are we today. And then coming up with measurable objectives over however the length of time we’re setting the Strategic Plan for; and then evaluation each year of what’s working well and what’s not,” Gordon said of the long-term game plan.

She also addressed the variables of regional economic development and Warren County and Front Royal’s place in that development. “The other thing I would say is, even though there are a lot of other counties around that are moving forward with economic development, deciding what makes us unique from them …”

Economic development assets
“Location, location, location,” Browne quoted a long-time observation about the “top three” factors in business development. “Logistics is something we have a great strength in – we are almost dead center in the mid-Atlantic; we’re eight hours from the Canadian border; we’re eight hours-and-change to Boston; eight hours going west gets you to Indianapolis; and eight hours south gets you all the way down to Georgia,” Browne recited of commercial driving times from Warren County.

“We have the Inland Port and train transportation that gets us to one of the two largest ports (Norfolk) on the entire east coast for importing and exporting goods,” Browne continued of the logistical advantages the county has as a commercial transportation hub near the intersection of two major Interstate highways, I-66 (east-west) and I-81 (north-south).

“From a logistical standpoint, one of the critical things every company looks at, we’re really ideally situated. We’re close to Washington, D.C., I could keep going on and on, on the logistical advantages that we have here that are under-utilized in what we do,” Browne told the executive committee.

EDA Board Vice-Chairman Jeff Browne hosted the Exec Committee meeting on Strategic Planning, summarizing the community’s economic development assets and impediments. The major impediment is the current lack of a unified economic development front within the county. And that’s not likely to do anybody’s EDA any good – at least not anybody’s in Warren County.

The transportation hub discussion led to another geographical consideration, the Town of Front Royal as the northern gateway to the Shenandoah Valley and the county’s natural assets of the Shenandoah River, it’s north and south forks, and the Blue Ridge Mountains overlooking the river.

“That’s one of the reasons we live here,” Gordon chimed in from her trip south to Blacksburg and Virginia Tech, likely on I-81.

“Regionalism is another area that I think is under-utilized in what it is that we do. We are, in my mind, less competitive with all of our neighbors although on specific projects we might well be vying for the same dollars on grants and the like. But the reality is that we are the Gateway to the Northern Shenandoah Valley. And if we’re doing our job well, we all benefit from it,” Browne said of an intertwined regional economy that fosters a cooperative outlook.

“To me, regionalism and working cooperatively is a much more attractive thing for site developers and companies looking to be here. I would rather get a piece of the pie by going that way, than none of the pie by going it alone,” Browne reasoned of regionalism’s positive impact on economic development for all.

Impediments to Economic Development
Browne then segued to what he called “impediments” to economic development. And ironically his referenced regional cooperative outlook has been impeded, not by an outside community, but by one closer to home.

“We’re well aware of the issues with the Town,” Browne began of a co-founding and still legally at least participating member, the Town of Front Royal, adding, “We have lawsuits and other things we’re going to have to overcome and have strategies for what it is that we do.”

We later checked with Browne on his “other things” reference. He elaborated that it was to three projects the Town owes the EDA debt service payments on: the new Town Police Headquarters, Leach Run Parkway and the West Main Street Connector Road at the Royal Phoenix site, the latter two he estimated adding about $3 million to $4 million to the $9-million debt service on the FRPD headquarters.

Front Royal’s new police station, financed for the Town by the EDA to the tune of about $9-million, remains a monthly financial albatross for the EDA.

As previously reported, on June 1st the EDA presented the Town with an invoice for slightly over $441,300 paid thus far by the EDA on the FRPD headquarters project, with a remaining balance of $8.44 million with 3% interest accruing. The Town’s response through back-channel negotiations between council members Chris Holloway and Lori Athey Cockrell and supervisors Cheryl Cullers and Delores Oates was to offer to pay a recoverable $10,529, or half of the interest-only July payment of $21,102, without admitting any legal or moral obligation to pay anything on the police station debt service.

The Town also requested and received permission from the state government to become the first Virginia municipality to be given authority to create an independent, second EDA while still technically a member of the EDA it co-founded with Warren County in 1969.

After initially championing a “reform” the EDA movement, the Town Council opted out of that cooperative effort with the re-tooled EDA and Warren County in order to sue the EDA for “at least $20 million” mirroring the EDA initial civil action against former EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald and seven co-defendants totaling $21.3 million. The EDA’s civil action has climbed to nearly $26 million against McDonald and 23 co-defendants, while other than the above-referenced and apparently stalled “back-channel” effort, the Town has rejected EDA offers of “good faith” negotiations to establish exactly what Town assets were involved in the alleged EDA embezzlements.

Other impediments were cited, including one created by an asset – blocked roads from lengthy freight trains headed to the Inland Port in the county’s north side. Though there is hopefully some relief coming with grant funds being accessed for a Rockland Road “flyover” to ease one of those blocked sites, he observed.

Martin also noted a hopeful contact to expand broadband service throughout the county to solve another impediment, the lack of broadband Internet connection countywide. That is a particular issue, not only for economic development but education during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency measures requiring a certain amount of home Internet virtual instruction to students while social distancing limits their in-school time.

Money and board vacancies
As with its own initiatives and Strategic Planning efforts, it was noted that budget factors were always a limiting variable on the County side as well. But it was commented that the EDA should become an advocate for the type of expenditures that will help stimulate economic development on the positive side, whether in educational funding or elsewhere.

Toward the committee meeting’s end, the matter of the two board vacancies created by the resignation of Gray Blanton and Ed Daley’s move to the County as interim county administrator was raised.

Browne said he had yet to receive word from the county supervisors who make EDA board appointments on Blanton’s seat but that he believed a decision was close. He also raised the possibility that an interim replacement for Daley might be put on the table with the understanding it would be a short-term replacement. The EDA and County’s intent has appeared to be that former EDA Board Chairman Daley will return to his position when the County hires a permanent replacement for Doug Stanley.