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Weekly Update

04/11/08

April 11, 2008

THE COMPANIES WE KEEP...if you have been smart enough to diligently read this every week, you know that Ponca City has been adding jobs at the rate of about 4.5% each year for the last couple of years. That's about three times the state's rate and four times the national rate. Soooooo, naturally, that means more people continue to come a lookin. Today, for example, a company was in from the East Coast, meeting with PCDA and others about a potential facility here. We can't tell you much, lest we need to shoot you, but the interest was high and the interesting dynamic that seems to be occurring is that they were selling us, not the other way around. Lots to do on this one. Elsewhere, PCDA is trying to crank out responses to three other companies that also have a strong interest in being here. We're not sure where all the talk of recession at the national level is. Frankly, we don't have time to read it all due to the high level of interest in expansions and new projects in the Ponca City area. We also completed a draft of an agreement this week for another company with whom we have been meeting about a rather large project. We haven't been voted off this one yet.

MARCHING ALONG....PCDA Trustees met yesterday to discuss the level of activity, job growth, etc. and what needs to happen to continue said stuff. They also heard numbers put to the energy described briefly above. To wit: In March, PCDA staff had contact with 24 companies that had never, here to fore, been fortunate enough to know about Ponca City. We also had 21 meetings with existing Ponca City companies, 13 with our regional partners from around the, uh, region, and had 27 meetings with government officials about a variety of economic development projects and initiatives. Right now, PCDA has 15 open projects and two active leads with a potential job count of 572, if all were to greenlight their projects.

MOBILE JOB FAIR...let's pretend for a moment that all of them did greenlight their project. Good, yes? Isn't economic development all about jobs, jobs and nothing but jobs? Well. Sorta. Economic development is about increasing the wealth in a community which is usually measured by jobs, (up almost 10% over the last two years) rising incomes, (highest level ever in Ponca City) rising tax base, (up to the highest level...you get the picture). We turn now to who would fill those jobs. PCDA, along with Ponca City Medical Center, (with whom we met today to discuss other potential employee recruitment methods) went to Wichita last week to hold a mobile job fair. Local jobs fairs often swap employees but doing same in another area seeks to attract people from outside that can come, fill some of those 500+ jobs, get paychecks and increase the wealth of the community. This is fairly new territory for us, (remote job fairs that is) so all we can say now is that we'll see if it pays off.

UPCOMING...

 Sun-Wed. Apr. 13th-16th: PCDA Mission Trip to Washington D.C.

 Thur. Apr. 17th: Tonkawa Chamber of Commerce office ribbon cutting & open house

 Mon. Apr. 21st: Small Business Day at the State Capitol, 1:00-5:00; Info: 405.235.3669

 Tue. Apr. 22nd: Earth Day, (bet you forgot)

Ponca City Development Authority. 102 S. Fifth Street, Ste. 3, Ponca City, OK 74601

580.765.7070/580.765.0969-fax, email dmyers@goponca.com, www.goponca.com