WEEKLY UPDATE      August 17th, 2007

ARE YOU BOARD??? ...The dogs days of summer sometimes get people bored but not so the PCDA board this morning. An agreement was approved for job creation in Ponca City, (see an upcoming edition of the Ponca City News). In addition, the board directed the staff on negotiations with eight other companies and heard the activity report for July. And how was last month? Glad you asked! PCDA staff contacted 14 new companies, had 25 meetings with existing companies, worked with consultants 17 times, met with various regional partners ten times and had 12 significant contacts with government types. The results were two agreements completed, 17 projects and one long shot lead still in the cue and 882 jobs in play. RETREATING FORWARD ...following the unboring board meeting, the PCDA board retreated, that is they went to their annual board retreat, (which is going on now if you’re diligently reading this when you received this…otherwise, it happened Friday.) This is a chance to step back, or out as the case is, (the retreat is being held at the South Fork Ranch overlooking the Arkansas River) and take a look at PCDA programs over the four years. Trustees are also talking about how economic development has changed as the economy has grown such as the tightening workforce, how to work with companies that came here back in the day seeking cheap labor, and training our workforce so that they are not cheap labor. THIS WEEK ...in addition to retreating and being board while not being bored, PCDA also continued the push for more economic growth in the future. We met with two new companies on moving here, (both have identified their workforce), worked on a proposal for an expansion here, and set up meetings next week for two more. Work continued through Pioneer Tech on a number of workforce initiatives including attracting funding for the mobile skills center, a project held up by a bureaucracy more interested in forms than results. We also worked on the realtor forum scheduled for Monday, attended a statewide meeting in Stroud to talk about, what else, workforce, completed the construction specs on the project you’ll read about in the Ponca City News and reached agreement with another company for job growth. MARKET GOT YOU DOWN? ...with the stock market “trending” down this last ten days, we thought we’d share some good news. You already know that Ponca City job growth in 2006 was well ahead of the state and national averages, (by sizeable amounts), well here’s some more news. This week, PCDA received the final job growth numbers from OSU for 2006 and job growth here was 5.1%. If you prefer technical economic-type jargon economists would call that kind of a jump “pretty darn good.” Something else grew last year as well. After years of no growth or, in a couple of cases, loss, the population of Ponca City increased by 204 people last year hitting 25,875. That’s the most been since 1999. Have a nice weekend. UPCOMING.... Sat. Aug. 18th: Chamber of Commerce Annual Auction, 7 pm, Marland Mansion; Call 765-4400 Mon. Aug. 20th: PCDA Commercial Broker Lunch, 12:00 noon, Chamber, call 765-7070 for info Ponca City Development Authority 102 S. Fifth Street, Ste. 3, Ponca City, OK 74601 580.765.7070/580.765.0969-fax Or E-Mail - David Myers CEcD - Executive Director Visit Ponca City Development's Latest News Archives © www.goponca.com - Ponca City Development Authority - Ponca City, Oklahoma