A company from out of state should announce soon that it is moving to a Greenwood-Leflore Industrial Park site.
The Leflore County Board of Supervisors agreed to sell the property during a closed-door session Monday evening.
"We anticipate having an announcement and groundbreaking early next week," Donnie Brock said this morning. Brock would not identify the company that is moving onto the 12.6 acres on Cypress Avenue near the Leflore County Agricenter.
But, he said, the impending announcement signals a turnaround for what has been a dismal era for the county's business climate. After seven plant closings and the loss of nearly 3,000 jobs since 1999, the county should begin to receive good news starting with the arrival of the new company next week, he said.
"I think that we may have a couple of more announcements certainly prior to the end of year, and maybe even before Thanksgiving," Brock predicted, adding, "We're going to be pretty upbeat going into 2004."
Robert Moore, president of the Board of Supervisors, said the industries expected to move to the county "certainly are not the cut-and-sew kind of stuff. These new businesses that are looking at us require semi- or skilled labor."
The board made the land deal subject to the company's announcement, but the sale indicates that the county is adapting to the changing times, Moore said. Despite the Delta's reputation for having a low-skilled workforce, the labor pool in the county is on par with the new requirements, he said.
"It speaks well for our workforce that people are able to adapt with a minimum amount of training to go right to work for these industries," he said. "It also suggests our work force is in better shape skill-wise than some people would think."
In other action Monday, the board:
- Named Duncan Williams Inc. as the firm that will sell bonds for the new Leflore County Jail and Sheriff's Department. The company offered a 3.99 percent net interest cost, the lowest of four bids.
- Authorized Greenwood Leflore Hospital to buy out the 2 percent interest it doesn't own in a Cleveland clinic. The hospital bought 98 percent of the Cleveland Family Medicine Clinic in 1996, splitting the rest of the ownership with two doctors.
Jerry Adams, the hospital's administrator, said the buy-out is part of an effort to restructure the way it operates its satellite clinics.
- Earmarked $5,000 of county funds to the Leflore County Convention and Recreation Board for advertising county resources for events at Rising Sun Community Park. Members of the Rising Sun Committee asked the board for the money to make repairs to the park, but supervisors said they could designate the money only for specific events. District 1 Supervisor Phil Wolfe voted against the motion.
County engineer Jack Willis announced that McIntyre Lake bridge is open to traffic. The bridge closed in March 2002 for repairs.
