LEDC Update
Today marks the day of our second Small Business Workshop! If you happen to be reading this before noon on Wednesday, February 26th, get yourself down to the County Seat Café for a free lunch and an informative presentation on small business planning.
We’re continuing to work with Open Hearts Children and Family Services as they develop their new facility that will be in Linden. For any who don’t know, Open Hearts is the organization involved in purchasing the old hospital last year that will be installing a residential treatment facility for foster children. The process has moved slower than anticipated but time is being taken to ensure that things come together in the way most beneficial for Linden and the surrounding areas that the facility will be serving.
The LEDC’s new website is live! Previously, the LEDC had an online presence as a page on the city’s website, but now we have our very own stake on the digital landscape of the internet. Huge credit to my assistant Authur Kimmel for putting in the hours to design the website and get it live.
Now that we have our own website, it can serve a multitude of purposes for our EDC and Linden as a whole. First and foremost, having an online presence to list the incentives and connections that we can provide prospective businesses gives us a new edge for business recruitment. When businesses begin site selection processes for new developments, one of the first things they typically do is search for the site city on the internet and begin researching what economic development opportunities the city can offer. Having our incentives at the forefront will be ex tremely beneficial in the long run.
Our new website will also host a ton of great information and can serve as an “informational center” for individuals living here and others. We’ve published a wealth of material about the LEDC including a historical archive of our board meeting minutes, our annual budgets, and bios on all of our board members.
In addition to information about the LEDC itself, we’re also going to include resources like links to Linden Main Street’s events calendar and the city’s utility payment system. One feature that I’m especially exited about is our online business directory for the city of Linden. This section of the website is still currently a work in progress, but if you have a small business in or near Linden, you can email contact info, a short descriptive paragraph, and a single logo or image to ledc.assistant@gmail.com to have it included in our directory completely free of charge! I realize that in 2020, launching a new website may not
I realize that in 2020, launching a new website may not necessarily be a point of major fanfare. However, to put it into perspective in our case, the LEDC has never had a website before. As we continue to move forward, I want our organization utilizing every possible avenue to pursue success and prosperity for this city.