Catoosa Vision

Regional Cooperation

Last Friday (3/10/06), the Catoosa Chamber of Commerce hosted the first "Community Roundtable," where city and county elected officials and leaders, along with several business biggies (about 40 people in all) hopped on a bus to tour the Chattanooga Business Development Center (the incubator), Enterprise South (the mega-certified industrial park), and finally lunch and talk with Chattanooga/Hamilton County leaders.

Here's an article from the Catoosa County News about the event.

Very impressive was how receptive Chattanooga was to the event. Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey and Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield, as well as Chamber President Tom Edd Wilson and Chamber Board Chairman and TN Aquarium CEO , were among several other Chattanooga economic development and business leaders present.

I think the most important aspect of this meeting was the fact that (a) it happened; and (b) Catoosa County leaders took it seriously enough to participate en masse. Kudos to all who participated (on both sides of the state line)!

The big question remaining now is... What next? Where do we go from here? We've all agreed publicly that we need to cooperate regionally for a better and brighter tomorrow.

But, to cooperate on what, precisely? What's the vision? What's the goal?

That's the next challenge.

posted by Chris Casey @ 8:19 AM