This past Saturday I went to the first Scotland County Highland Games out at the John Blue Historical grounds. It was, by all accounts, a smashing success. I heard the number of visitors exceeded 7,000- once again- 7,000. Riding around town Friday and Saturday nights I could not but notice restaurant parking lots full of customers and all the hotels were completely sold out. I, on behalf of the citizens of Laurinburg, want to congratulate and thank all those involved in bringing this wonderful event to Scotland County. Special mention goes to Mr. Bill Caudill who, if one person had to be named as the primary force in bringing this about, would unquestionably be that person.

‘Developing (or leveraging) our assets.’ This idea is often mentioned when people speak of economic development. What does it mean? The Highland Games were a textbook example of this concept. The organizers took one of our county’s greatest assets, namely, all things Scottish, and turned it into a weekend windfall for the City and County.

We here at City Hall also have been spending a lot of time trying to develop our community’s substantial assets. This past week we met with the Mayor and City Manager of Pinehurst to further our discussions on working out an arrangement on the water plant in Wagram and we have hired a consultant that has experience in working through these complex situations. We hope in the next 60 days to have an agreement in place that will ultimately be profitable to Laurinburg and Scotland County.

We requested and had a great meeting with the President of St Andrew’s, Paul Baldesare, to see what role the City can play in helping the College grow. Some very exciting ideas were discussed between Mr. Baldesare and the City Manager. I believe we at City Hall would be negligent in our roles if we did not reach out meaningfully to help this vital City institution as it goes through a difficult period.

We have been working with the Laurinburg Downtown Revitalization Committee (LDRC), reaching out and extending the City’s considerable resources to help develop this key City asset. For far too long the development and improvement of downtown has not been approached with the urgency and importance that it deserves from the City. Over the coming weeks I believe downtown shoppers will notice some improvements in parking and lighting. There is much the City can do to help downtown grow, with façade improvement, ordinance development, parking, lighting, building reuse and many other things. Having a charming and thriving historic downtown, I believe, is an important piece of the economic development puzzle.

There are many other assets to be developed as well, the airport, the hospital, retirement living and retail development to mention a few. I still believe that we are not going to meaningfully change our economic fortunes here by some big new industry coming to town, though we must of course continue to play that game. No, Laurinburg will grow again only when we, with hard work, calculated risk taking and belief in ourselves, develop our assets to their full potential. This past weekend, the organizers and volunteers of the Highland Games showed us how its done.