During the past two-plus years since the Lake County Economic Development department was eliminated, many things have changed locally and across the nation.
It would be easy to say that the economy has struggled since, in retaliation, many entities in Lake County have sought ways to either produce revenue, cut costs, or both over those two years.
However, according to Ronne Lindsay, Executive Director of Lake County Development, her organization met with various entities to form a collaboration that could eventually lead to an economic renaissance in the area.
On Thursday, Aug. 21, at the Lake County Fairgrounds, over two dozen individuals representing various local interests met at the Economic Development Summit, designed to get the proverbial ball rolling.
“There are so many of us doing so many different things to create different opportunities when it may be more beneficial for us to pull together,” Lindsay said. “There has been no common direction and no one knew what the others were doing so sometimes we had people doing the same thing or missing out on other opportunities. We need to find what’s feasible with all of these entities to see how we will approach this and who will lead us.”
According to Lindsay and Lakeview Town Mgr. Ray Simms, the loss of the Economic Development Department due to a lack of funding in 2006 led to the analogous chicken-with-its head cut off scenario.
“Before it’s closed, the economic development office’s job was to make sure everyone knew what everyone else was doing,” Simms said. “When it left it created a situation where everyone was looking out for themselves.”
Lindsay stated that with no one taking the lead on the local effort to better the economy via its various natural and human resources, the Lake County Development department spearheaded the push to get the important players together including, the Lakeview Chamber of Commerce, Lake County Board of Commissioners, Lakeview Town Management, Lake County Resource Initiative, and Pacific Power.
“It was a very good meeting since it brought so many key players together to develop a solid economy for Lake County,” County Commissioner Brad Winters said. “It’s a good time to pull together since the concern is we need to pull together and get coordinated so we don’t all do the same thing.”
The five-hour meeting included general discussion regarding the various obstacles each faces, what each entity brings to the solution-table, and the discussion of how to get all of them on the same page.
“If everybody is going in different directions and duplicating one another nothing gets done,” Lindsay said. “We hope that we can pool our resources, define our resources, and collaborate to get things moving forward faster.”

.... for the rest of the story, refer to this week's edition of the Lake County Examiner.