Future focused: Investment decisions suggest eye for a stronger county

You can't sit on your laurels these days.

If you want to be part of the economic development future in North Carolina, you have to make your community one that people notice.

And while marketing campaigns are lovely and tourism brings new people for a visit, neither is enough to change the fortunes of the thousands of people who live here.

Real progress requires investment, sound management and a determination to provide the infrastructure businesses need and residents crave.

So, if you want to be one of the places businesses consider for development, you have to make sure you have the stuff in place that they will need, the incentives that attract them and the amenities that will make their employees happy to relocate.

And that seems to be the agenda of county officials based on some of their recent decisions.

We will have a new, nice library in Mount Olive, the jail problem is being solved, and there has been some serious discussion about other infrastructure needs as well.

In the city, there have been discussions about partnering with the Air Force base as well as plans for continued work downtown.

The school district is moving forward with a construction agenda and there is another meeting between the county commission and the school board planned this week.

And every one of those decisions, as well as others like them involving transportation and other development issues, are exactly what this community needs to keep bringing in the retail investment and the jobs.

The competition is stiff for investment these days. Now is the time to make sure that Wayne County is ahead of that curve. We are going to have to spend money to make money.

And that seems to be Job 1 -- at last.

Published in Editorials on October 7, 2013 10:41 AM