Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

CCIC important to Clark County

What, exactly, is the Clark County Industrial Council, and what does it do?

These questions have been asked around the community, and county, as there has been doubt raised over the CCIC's being in existence.

According to Kevin Copeland, executive director of the CCIC, the organization exists to recruit high paying, safe jobs to Clark County.

The CCIC was originally founded as the Clark County Action Committee when several industries left the area in the mid-1980s and the unemployment rate rose to 16 percent and above.

The CCAC was a group of local businesses along with city and county officials who worked to improve the county's economic situation.

Eventually, the CCAC became the CCIC on May 16, 1988, and it was off to the races. The CCIC worked a deal with banks in the county to buy back land where the Clark County Industrial Park is.

At one point, the land was in foreclosure, and the county was unable to locate industries there because of the lack of infrastructure, meaning there was no water or sewer.

At this time, the local sales tax collection was down, as were property values. Businesses were leaving, as were people.

The new CCIC took a gamble in asking those who lived in Clark County to pass a 1-cent sales tax to provide infrastructure to the industrial park. The tax passed overwhelmingly.

Since then, Copeland said, the CCIC has worked to help create more than 1,800 new jobs, while the county has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state on a regular basis.

These 1,800 jobs, he said, translate into $35 million in annual salaries, which has, in turn, increased the tax base by $1.5 million per year.

Success follows success, and the increase in industry and jobs, has led to a strong real estate market, along with a satellite industrial park being built on W.P. Malone Drive near Interstate-30.

In addition, the CCIC has worked with Henderson State University and Ouachita Baptist University in creating the Southwest Arkansas Technical Learning Center.

"It all began with the passage of the 1-cent sales tax," Copeland said.

Since then, there has been a 50 percent increase in both property and sales tax.

And, after the bond issue for the infrastructure was paid off, the sales tax was repealed.

The initial campaign for the tax, he said, was "Pennies for Jobs."

Once water and sewer were in place, the first industry to locate in the industrial park was Petit Jean Poultry. Petit Jean bought the first spec building the CCIC built, and has since expanded to meet its growing needs.

What was once empty land now has numbered named streets, with workers coming and going at all hours of the day and night as several of the industries work three shifts.

"A lot of people put in a lot of time and energy on the CCIC," he said. "If not for the CCIC, we wouldn't have what we have in Clark County."

The CCIC worked to bring in Carrier to build air conditioning compressors. The company later became Scroll Technologies.

In 1992, the CCIC built a second spec building, which wound up being the home of Polycarbon, Inc.

Copeland said the CCIC has helped several businesses expand and grow.

"The CCIC is important in Clark County," Copeland said.

At this time, Angela Canada, executive secretary with the CCIC is working to make Clark County the first county to be certified under the Arkansas Community of Excellence umbrella.

Clark County was the first county in Arkansas with two ACE communities (Arkadelphia and Gurdon), but is now working to get the entire county ACE certified.

The CCIC's future plans are to build another spec building and completing the satellite park, filling it with knowledge-based companies, as they pay more.

The CCIC's main goal, he said, is elevating the per capita income for the people of the county.

The success of the CCIC has made Clark County "The" model for other counties and regions to follow in their quest for a better economy.