Lake Wylie wants in on county economic development board

Facing concerns of fairness and equal representation, the York County Council deferred second reading Monday night on an overhaul to its economic development board.

The board traditionally has been made up of chamber of commerce and business leaders from throughout the county. The new ordinance would create a 17-member board and include nonresidents who own businesses or work in the county.

The York County Regional Chamber of Commerce would appoint one member. York County Growth Partners would get three. The Western York County Economic Development Alliance would get one, as would the Catawba Indian Nation, Winthrop University and York Technical College. That leaves nine at-large members appointed by the council.

Ray and Mary Williams, new leaders for the Lake Wylie Civic Association, told the council the new setup would have a negative impact.

“We’re talking about disenfranchising Lake Wylie from the economic development board,” Ray Williams said.

Without a seat for the Lake Wylie Chamber of Commerce, he said, local interests aren’t served. He can’t understand why the county policy requiring boards to comprise residents would change to give nonresidents a majority of votes.

“Our businesses, our families, our neighborhoods lose any input onto the economic development board,” he said.

Mary Williams said Lake Wylie “is exploding” with growth, making any decision to exclude the area on the board curious.

“I’m not exactly sure what the intent is in trying to change the makeup of that board,” she said. “It’s worked in the past, so why would we want to change it now?”

Susan Bromfield, president of the Lake Wylie Chamber, said Tuesday morning her group will send a formal letter to the council opposing the change.

“The Lake Wylie Chamber of Commerce has had a representative on the York County Economic Development Board for more than 30 years,” Bromfield said, “until now.”

‘Brain trust’

Council Chairman Britt Blackwell said the idea is more than an updated membership. It’s a new group with a new goal.

“The chamber is supposed to be there to help small business,” he said. “This was supposed to be a brain trust of the best, to get us to bring big companies to York County.”

The new ordinance aims at industry leaders as members. The idea is that people who run large companies best know what would attract others like them to York County.

“It was getting the best minds involved, which usually are the people that live it,” Blackwell said.

Councilman Bruce Henderson, who represents Lake Wylie and Clover, said he agrees with many of the goals in the new ordinance. But, he said, objections “scream out” for fairness.

“With proper notification and having them involved,” he said of local chambers, “rather than having just the one large regional chamber of commerce, I tend to agree at this point now that they were kind of kicked to the curb.”

Henderson doesn’t oppose having representation from each district or each chamber.

“They’re the whole county,” he said. “All the county needs to be involved.”

‘Talent from outside’

Councilwoman Christi Cox said deferring the issue allows time to tackle another big question: residency.

“My concern is the nonresident part,” she said. “I’m not really sure I understand why we need to include that.”

Other members say a company owner who works in the county but lives outside it has enough interest in the local economy to be included.

“Sometimes there’s talent from outside that’s worth having on your board,” said Councilman Chad Williams.

Councilman William “Bump” Roddey said he doesn’t want to “strip any district of having a voice on any board.” Having new, nonvoting members could be an option, he said.

“If we want to add more CEOs and top officials from some of our larger companies in the area, I think we could just have them added, maybe in an ex-officio type of role,” Roddey said.

Councilman Robert Winkler said he may propose an amendment keeping the new number of members but redistributing appointments to allow more input from throughout the county. He says a local chamber “brings a lot to the board,” but he expects active involvement from members on the new board.

“Part of the problem has been there are some chambers who were not active in their membership,” Winkler said.

Blackwell urged council members to look at the new board from a different angle. If the goal is to bring in new, large business to York County, then the board may look and operate differently than other county boards.

“This is not about personal agendas,” Blackwell said. “This is not territorial protection. This is not about district protection. This is about getting the best and the brightest.”

This story was originally published October 21, 2015 at 11:11 AM with the headline "Lake Wylie wants in on county economic development board."