Washington County Mayor Joe Grandy, left, Carter County Mayor Patty Woodby and Sullivan County Mayor Richard Venable spoke to the East Tennessee Republican Club in Johnson City on Monday about regional economic development projects.
Washington County Mayor Joe Grandy, left, Carter County Mayor Patty Woodby and Sullivan County Mayor Richard Venable spoke to the East Tennessee Republican Club in Johnson City on Monday about regional economic development projects.
The mayors of Carter, Sullivan and Washington counties say a number of collaborative projects on education, drug recovery and economic development are set to yield benefits for Northeast Tennessee.
Sullivan County Mayor Richard Venable, who joined Carter County Mayor Patty Woodby and Washington County Mayor Joe Grandy in speaking to the East Tennessee Republican Club on Monday, said area regionalism can trace its roots back to 1969 when “visionary leaders” from their counties decided to purchase 500 acres in Piney Flats for an industrial park.
He said those efforts have today resulted in more than 2,500 jobs at the Tri-County Industrial Park. He said lessons learned from that collaboration has now led to the creation of the public/private NETNHUB, an economic development group that encompasses all of Northeast Tennessee.
Venable said it is also regional cooperation that has allowed the Tri-Cities Airport Authority to pool funding to develop an $8 million aerospace park on 140 acres in Blountville.
“Sullivan County has reached a landmark agreement to share all tax dollars collected at the aerospace park with its funding partners,” Venable said. “That’s true regionalism.”
Woodby also pointed to another joint project that she said is poised be a “game-changer” for the entire region.
“The Northeast Tennessee Recovery Center is a great endeavor and the best teacher of regionalism I’ve been a part of,” she said of the 180-bed inpatient drug recovery facility for state inmates in Roan Mountain. That project has been partially funded by the state and eight counties of Northeast Tennessee.
She said the treatment facility, along with expanded job training programs to be offered by the Tennessee College of Applied Technology campus in Elizabethton, will provide inmates with a “second chance” at being drug-free and becoming productive employees and caring parents.
Both Woodby and Venable said the “Middle College” model at the TCAT has proven effective in seeing that high school students in their counties are trained in a specific trade while graduating with a high school diploma and a work-ready certificate.
Washington County Mayor Joe Grandy said the new TCAT satellite campus in Boones Creek will help expand that “Middle College” approach to more high school students in the region.
He said another innovative program that will soon be introduced into area school systems — with help from the Niswonger Foundation — “could have a significant impact on our region and offer a huge opportunity for economic development.”
He local leaders were recently briefed at a symposium on the “very unique science” of microbiology and the “redesign of organisms for useful purposes.” One application, Grandy said, is to produce low-cost sugars as petroleum substitutes.
He said the Northeast Tennessee region already has a facility available to conduct such research. Grandy said Eastman Chemical Co. established the 70,000-square-foot Valleybrook research complex in Sullivan County decades ago.
It is now operated by East Tennessee State University. Grandy said providing sewer to the facility has been a problem in the past, but that will soon be remedied within the next 30 days with a connection to Johnson City’s regional sewer system.
He said with that connection, the ETSU/Eastman Valleybrook Campus will be a “great research facility” for what is estimated to soon become a $3 trillion growth industry worldwide.
Robert Houk has served as a journalist and photographer at the Press since 1987. He is a recipient of the Associated Press Managing Editors Malcom Law Award for investigative reporting.
