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Leadership Wilkes follow-up meeting sees questions answered, new projects planned The critical second meeting of the new Leadership Wilkes community effort took place Thursday evening, with designated leaders addressing the questions were identified at the first meeting in August. Importantly, more than 40 of the original 85 Wilkes County people who took part in the first meeting attended the second meeting, showing a strong commitment to change on the part of the community leaders. The evening opened with Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Donna Hardy going through a follow-up of questions and comments from the August 24 meeting. Some of the suggestions made at the first meeting showed unfamiliarity with programs and efforts that are, in fact, already in place and making a difference in Wilkes County. One comment from the first meeting implied that Wilkes County was not trying to get new plants because Warrenton just announced a new plant with 30 jobs. County Commission Chairman Sam Moore pointed out that the company in question looked only at places that were directly on Interstate 20, so Wilkes County never was in the running. "We are going after every industry opportunity out there, but we have to meet their qualifications to be in the running." One suggestion was that joint programs be established between local employers and Wilkes County schools. Superintendent of Schools Joyce Williams pointed out that for years the high school's vocational programs have offered job placement and internship programs in agriculture and in health care with several local companies and health care facilities. "We get a lot of our EMTs from those high-school internships," said Wilkes EMS Director Blake Thomson. One participant said that zoning ordinances were needed both in the city and county. City Administrator Mike Eskew pointed out that Washington does have a comprehensive set of zoning ordinances in place, and they were enforced. Outside the city, Sam Moore said, Wilkes County has a land use program and a planning commission in place, but that the county didn't want to make it hard to build in the county. Some issues are getting new attention, however. In a new answer to the repeated problem of poor work ethics on the part of many Wilkes County workers, business owner Jeanne Davis Blair and Polly Fievet of the Wilkes County Adult Education Center are working together on Project Succeed. Project Succeed will be a class on basic work etiquette, teaching workers what is required to both get a job and to keep it.
This new program shows real promise if the local workforce will take advantage of it, Mayor Willie Burns said. "Statistics show that 80 percent of the workforce that lose their jobs lose them because of poor work ethics. We really need this."
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