The power of the pen. In just 3 business days one can get documents from gov'tal agencies. -- Thanks ajc for the Kmart piece. Most informative.

Have you ever heard of the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD)? It recruits businesses, trade partners and tourists to Georgia.

You may still know it as the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade & Tourism.

I have been the attorney for the Douglas-Coffee County Industrial Authority for many years, and recently, we followed the lead of GDEcD and changed our name to the Douglas-Coffee County Economic Development Authority.

Economic development is a tough game when you live in the Other Georgia. In Douglas and Coffee County we pride ourselves we all of the good fortune we have enjoyed. Such success led Tom Perdue (yeah, that one, as in former Gov. Joe Frank Harris' Chief of Staff, Mac Barber and Sen. Chambliss) to dub us the "Oasis in the dessert."

Where I am going with this? Recruiting businesses and industry is both an art and a science, and at a minimum it requires patience and discretion.

I once heard the attorney for the development authority is a neighboring city relate has one evening the authority was discussing a prospect. The authority chairman asked that the reporter from the local paper to put his notepad down -- something customary for us in the Other Georgia -- and the authority proceeded to discuss how a large tire factory was considering locating to the area.

The next morning on the front page of the local paper was the headline: "XYZ Tire Co. considering [the Georgia town] for new plant."

That afternoon the authority received the call. All negotiations about the company's possible plant location in the area were off.
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This past Friday I read a story in the ajc's business section under the headline "Ga. $28 million shy of Mich. Kmart bid.

In the business index of the ajc the story gets one's interest up by proclaiming "Wooing Kmart a 'delicate balance.' Documents offer rare look at Georgia strategy."

Go to the story itself, and the headline is "Kmart: Georgia cautious in attempting to lure retailer to leave Michigan."

The story begins noting:

"Georgia may have to dig between the sofa cushions for change if it wants to win Kmart from its home state of Michigan.

"The Peach State's economic incentive package is about $28 million short of what Michigan is offering to keep the headquarters of the country's third-largest retailer, according to state documents obtained through a freedom of information request. [The authors mean through a Georgia Open Records Act request.]"

The story proceeds to tell about what Kmart has told Georgia it wants; what Michigan is offering; etc.

And then it notes: "The documents offer a rare glimpse into the internal discussions of negotiating to land a large company in Georgia."

A couple of days ago I had a post about being lunched. The post was entitled "Reading about getting breakfasted over Kerry, & then being lunched over Shipp, all in 24-hr. period. -- Politics lives always for the moment to come." The "breakfasted" bit had come from a Baxter & Galloway piece noted in the post.

This past summer I had the pleasure of meeting Charles Gay with the ajc. He has the final word on what makes it into much of the paper, but I feel confident the editor for the business section is someone else.

If I was Gov. Perdue or Mayor Shirley Franklin, or if I worked with GDEcD, and my state, city and department are still recruiting Kmart, I would have been looking for someone to breakfast, lunch, sup and dine on Saturday morning.

Come on guys. Whose side are you on anyway? At least stay in Georgia; in the Other Georgia you would be tar and feathered (and possibly quartered) and run out of the state, or at least to "the" Georgia.