Our View Time to take a page from the Jonesboro playbook?

Our View

Time to take a page from the Jonesboro playbook?

West Memphis and even Marion political and community leaders might just want to take a close look at the goings-on with our good neighbors in Jonesboro.

This delta city that has become the fastest growing municipality in Eastern Arkansas is now focusing on an initiative city leaders dub Momentum Jonesboro, the economic development fundraising plan that is now on pace to reach its $3.7 million goal earmarked to target substantial job growth.

This ambitious and realistic concept is designed to create 2,500 jobs that will have salaries of $42,000 or more a year and will span over a five-year period.

With a goal of securing the $3.7 million by May, planners say they already have a financial commitment from 31 different private sector companies more than willing to be part of this aggressive plan.

So then, what is behind this fundraising initiative?

From information we obtained from the online Arkansas Business News, this unique plan was devised by the private partnership development organization called Jonesboro Unlimited. We’re told this organization is focusing on three primary areas: marketing and staff to court selected industries, workforce development and improving Jonesboro’s quality of life standards.

Five industries are already in the sights of this development organization which have been identified as agriculture business, advanced manufacturing, which includes food processing, equipment manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, logistics, health care and professional services.

It is clear this is a very well-mapped out strategic plan being organized by public and community leaders willing to work together for the betterment of the entire Jonesboro area.

Mark Young, president and CEO of the Jonesboro Regional Chamber of commerce, says this unified leadership team have put aside any differences they had and focus primarily on education with a strategy that ranges from pre-K schools up to Arkansas State University plus local trade and technical schools like ASU-Newport, which has a campus in Jonesboro.

Jonesboro already enjoys an unemployment rate of just 2.8 percent, which is well below the national average of 4.7 percent, West Memphis of over 5 percent and Crittenden County of 4.5 percent.

But, the U.S. Census Bureau data shows Jonesboro median household income was $41,688, 25 percent below the national average and also below the state average. How does that compare to West Memphis?

Well, the median income for a household in Crittenden County’s largest city was a just over $23,000.

Even though Jonesboro’s initiatives and growth are showing strong signs of success more than 23.7 percent of Jonesboro residents were at or below the federal poverty line.

Addressing such performance figures has been the driving force among Jonesboro’s aggressive and progressive leadership and helps provide the impetus and goals for this latest and aggressive job creation plan.

We would think it would behoove those individuals in Crittenden County who want to seriously address some of the same issues Jonesboro is dealing with to request their assistance in creating a similar plan for Crittenden County.

BIBLE VERSE

Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways. Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments. I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments. I will keep thy statutes: O forsake me not utterly.

119:2-8

Psalm