Martin Updates SCDA on 2015; Officers for 2016 Chosen

The Stephens County Development Authority gets its calendar year started.

Thursday, the Development Authority set its slate of officers for 2016 at its regular monthly meeting.

Brian Akin was once again elected unanimously to serve as the Authority’s Chair.

Evan Hellenga, who replaced Terry Carter as Toccoa’s representative on the Authority, will serve as Vice-Chair.

Chuck Wright will serve as Treasurer; Dennis Bell will serve as Secretary; and Clay Fisher will serve as Assistant Secretary.

Also, the Development Authority set its monthly meeting times for the year ahead.

The Authority will continue to meet on the second Thursday of each month at the SCDA offices on Doyle Street.

However, the Authority did vote to move its meeting times to 5 p.m. each month.

After setting up its 2016, Development Authority Executive Director Tim Martin looked back at calendar year 2015.

Martin said 2015 was a good year on the economic front when it came to recruiting new projects.

“We had 17 projects in 2015 that we named that we worked and 10 of those said ‘yes’,” said Martin. “They range from 2 jobs to 202 jobs, but every one of them is important, especially to those people getting those jobs.”

Meanwhile, Martin said the Development Authority knows of 24 existing companies in Stephens County that added jobs or made an investment in the county in 2015.

Overall, Martin said the numbers for economic development in 2015 looked very solid.

“About 500 jobs, $50 million in investment, 570,000 square feet of building space, $600,000 of grants came into the community,” said Martin.

Martin said one of those grants was for $400,000 for the NIFCO KTW project, while the other was a grant to help with water and sewer expansion on the Toccoa By-pass.

He said other projects that have made progress in 2015 included Georgia Highway 17, the demolition of the Host Inn, and continued improvements at Hayestone-Brady Business Park.

Finally, Martin said the Development Authority also made progress this past year by increasing its social media presence.