WCBI’s Steve Rogers weighs in the word of words with Higgins in one of his prolific columns.

Rogers describes part of Higgins speech last week at the Link 5 year celebration:

“On at least four occasions during the Link luncheon, Higgins took not-so-subtle jabs at Starkville and Oktibbeha County.

At one point, he slighted Jon Maynard, who takes over Oct. 1 as CEO of the Greater Starkville Development Partnership, by coyly suggesting Maynard’s two years in the economic development arena aren’t much of a threat.

Furthermore, he made light of Maynard’s promise to “represent all the communities in north Mississippi.” Higgins paused at the end of the quote, the hesitation serving as emphasis that Lowndes County is boss.”

Further into the column, Rogers highlights the love-hate relationship the east enders have with MSU.

“We can’t talk about regionalism and then bash our potential partners. We can’t ask MSU to help bring high-tech industries here and then disparage university officials behind their back. We can’t hand out incentives and then always expect a pat on the back in return.

Competition is good. But the best winners — the ones people like to get behind, support and cheer for — are those who get self-satisfaction in the victory and what it can mean in the long run, not in flaunting their success.”

At the end of the day, Columbus seems to be overlooking one thing: Starkville is a better place to live and raise a family. We have more educational opportunities for kids, lower crime rates and a higher quality of life. The Dispatch itself reported that Columbus had a gang problem.

I’ll take economic development disfunction over those problems any day of the week.

SDN reports on the progress of Middleton market. Looks like a Tuesday Morning and a Hibachi grill, among other, will be in the remodeled center.

According to theDispatch, the Columbus mall may be dead. The longer the time passes with no announcements, the higher the likely hood of it being DOA.

At the fifth anniversary of the Link, Joe Higgins cited accomplishments as well as misses of the economic development group. It is pretty amazing what they have done in 5 years to grow the industrial base of Lowndes county.

OCEDA revealed Monday that their budget for the upcoming fiscal year is slightly larger ($750,096 vs $732,632) and they were popping $2000 a game (2 games) for skybox rental at MSU football games. The theory is you can wine and dine prospects while watching the team’s stellar offensive production. Hopefully the OCEDA crew got a little more movement out of their prospects than the fans did out of the team Saturday…..