Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Utility May Locate In County

Clark County has been visited on several occasions by a utility company interested in locating here.

Clark County Judge Floyd "Buddy" Manning, gave the Clark County Industrial Council an update on the company at the regular monthly meeting of the CCIC Thursday, March 16.

Manning said it looks good for the county to get the utility company to put a plant here.

It began, he told the council, with a phone call from the company to his office on Feb. 10. He tried to refer them to either CCIC President Brown Hardman, or State Rep. Percy Malone, the group's executive vice president.

Molly Boyd, project manager, declined, but agreed to work with the CCIC along with Manning and the county on the project. Manning said the county is not in competition with the CCIC, but is part of the group.

Manning called Malone and Hardman, then called Houston, Texas, where the company is located, and set up a meeting. He said they were impressed as it only took a couple of hours to set the meeting while the company expected it to take a week or more.

Manning, Malone and Hardman met with representatives of the company, gave them a tour of the area and took them to the proposed site. As the site had a gate across the road, they were unable to get a closer look.

But, another meeting was held about a week-and-a-half later, with company officials, including project engineers and surveyors, coming with all-terrain vehicles to get an up close and personal look at the land.

Manning told the council the company representatives were impressed with what they saw.

Another meeting will be scheduled with company representatives to take them on a boat ride up the Ouachita River, which will provide water to the plant if it is built in the county.

Should the company locate in Clark County, it will provide electricity to its customers, but will not be in competition with existing electric providers in Clark County, Manning said. It will be gas fired and powered by steam to produce electricity.

Manning checked how much the property tax runs on the land in question, some 40 acres at the start with an option on 100, and learned the tax is $200 to $500 a year, which, he said, isn't much.

Should the company want to try and get funding through Act 9 bonds, he said, these taxes would be deferred for nine years. Manning added this would be a good trade as there would be 200-300 jobs created during the construction phase with 30-35 high tech jobs paying $80,000 to $85,000 a year once the plant began operation.

In addition, he said, there would be other jobs open at the facility as well.

The company has options on two parcels of land in Clark County and another parcel of land in Hot Spring County it's looking at.

"When we're further down the line," Manning said, "they want to send someone to talk to different groups and the CCIC."

Should the county be selected as the site for the plant, it would take about 18 months to build.

In other business, Tim Stokes, the new director of the Southwest Arkansas Technical Learning Center, told the group his first three priorities for the job.

Stokes has been in touch with area human resource directors discussing the needs of the various industries.

The top three priorities, he said, begins with pre-employment training. This would be an effort to get people from surrounding counties to consider looking for work in Clark County.

Next was the emerging work force, where an industrial curriculum would be developed in area schools to help get those students not planning on attending college to look locally for jobs.

Stokes proposed a grant be submitted for work force development at the high school level.

His final target was additional training for the existing work force. Grants can be obtained through the Arkansas Department of Economic Development for this, he said.