Calaveras County Promoting Economic Development

Copperopolis, CA — Calaveras County is making another concerted effort to promote economic development.

Along with the Chamber of Commerce Castle & Cooke Vice President Dave Haley is heading up the effort.

“The economic development of our county has been lagging for years. We’ve had no tools to induce economic development and only hope and nothing ever happens. We’ve reformed our Economic Development Company and have several people on the Board that are the movers and shakers of the area. We hope to get something done. We’re doing an economic profile (Patricia Jones) and our profile is going to be a promotional tool for our county that informs possible new businesses and our existing businesses to help enhance them and the citizens of what the opportunities are in this county.”

What, if anything, has Calaveras County learned from the success already enjoyed by the Tuolumne County Economic Development Authority and its director Larry Cope?

“We learned that success comes from doing stuff and we unfortunately have not been doing it. We talk it over here and we have summits and we do a lot of different things but no action items. Larry has shown that he gets out with some action things and gets things done.”

Haley adds the economic development effort will only succeed if it is a truly joint effort between the county, the Chamber of Commerce, the cities and the business community.

A past economic development effort died four years ago from a lack of funding. That was the same fate of the Economic Development Corporation in Tuolumne County several years ago.

Written by bill.johnson@mlode.com