STATE CONSIDERS CAPE SITE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OFFICE

Cape Girardeau is being considered for one of five regional offices to be established by the Missouri Department of Economic Development over the next few months.

Funding for the offices is included in the budget for this fiscal year, and several sites could be finalized before the end of the year.

Over the next few weeks, Bob J. Vaughan, director of Existing Business Programs, will visit 27 cities that have been identified as possible locations. He will meet with local officials to discuss office locations and the community's ability to provide resources the office needs.

Vaughan said five cities are under consideration in Southeast Missouri, including Cape Girardeau, Rolla and Poplar Bluff. The cities were selected by an external team made up of representatives from economic development agencies around the state.

The department staff added two other communities for consideration in Southeast Missouri.

Vaughan will be in Cape Girardeau Wednesday to meet with local officials, including City Manager J. Ronald Fischer, Mayor Albert Spradling, Jr., Presiding Commissioner Gene Huckstep, Chamber President John Mehner, and Mitch Robinson, director of the Cape Area Industrial Recruitment Association.

Joe Driskill, director of the Department of Economic Development, informed Spradling in a letter Sept. 12 that the city is being considered for an office. He included a definition of a regional office and its objectives, and asked local officials to be prepared to discuss how the city could help meet those objectives.

Vaughan stressed that he is not seeking free office space, because funds are budgeted for offices. Instead, he wants input from local officials about possible locations that are accessible to the public and will enable the office to connect with its network of economic development partners.

Those partners include small business development centers, regional planning commissions, chambers of commerce, the University of Missouri Extension, the Service Corps of Retired Executives, the Small Business Administration, community and economic developers, and others delivering services to small businesses.

Vaughan said it is important that regional offices have access to teleconferencing facilities.

"Our primary focus is on assistance to existing businesses of all kinds, small and large," he said. "We want to work with the partners we have to deliver quality service to the client."

Ideally, Vaughan said, the regional offices will provide the same services citizens could receive by walking into the department's offices in the Truman Building in Jefferson City.

Regional offices will have two professionals on staff and one administrative person.

Robinson said his industrial recruitment association board has some reservations about the concept of regional offices and whether they would duplicate work already being done by other economic development agencies.

But since regional offices are going to be established, Robinson said, it would be good to have one in Cape Girardeau. "We have a good rapport with people in Jefferson City and this is another program that can be beneficial to us. Obviously, access is important to any work of the government."

Robinson said he believes Cape Girardeau will have a lot to offer the department. "This is a big region and we have a good, central location that is about as good as any," he noted.

Vaughan said no final decisions would be made on regional office sites until after the Nov. 8 general election. If Amendment 7 passes, he said budget cuts would keep offices from opening.

"We are trying to get to a point where immediately after the election we can pick the first city and region we will open and let the process begin," he said.

Economic Development Department Director Driskill will have the final say in where offices are placed.