Director Anna Powell began by describing the corporation’s makeup. It is governed by a board made up of two members each from the Hope City Board of Directors and the Hempstead County Quorum Court with ex officio members that include state representatives, the state senator, the UAHT chancellor, the city manager, the county judge, as well as three elected members from the investors group. The funding for the corporation comes from contracts with Hope, Hempstead County and Hope Water & Light, business memberships and individuals. 

“One of the things that I heard from our board members in visiting sessions, when I first came on board was that we needed to have more of a public presence and make awareness to our constituents in the community about what we actually do throughout the county and what our day-to-day role looks like,” Powell said. 

So she has stepped up marketing and programs that allow her to talk to the community and has invested time in connecting people with state resources, among them the Arkansas Economic Development Commission’s Business Development Division (which Powell said she had worked with the most) and the Arkansas Small Business Development Technology Center. 

Since taking the directorship in June of 2023, Powell reported the HCEDC had worked on 15 projects. These mostly involve leads from companies considering locating in the county that normally are passed down from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. Though one difficulty is that many have to be culled out as scams from people attempting to get incentive funds, the more salient problem, Powell said pertains to HCEDC’s lack of an ability to compete with other counties in the incentives it can offer. 

“One of the things that I'll tell you is several years ago our organization went for a tax here in Hempstead County to support economic development. And I will say that is one of the things that is very lacking. In Arkansas, there are several communities that do have a tax that they can support incentives with. … There are things that we would like to be able to offer industries and businesses to relocate, or move or grow and expand here in Hempstead County, but we are unable to match or make a more competitive package,” Powell said. 

Powell added that talk about incentives with companies considering locating here often takes place after up to four months other work has already been done in the interaction with that company, but at that point HCEDC’s incentives are less competitive than those available in other counties. 

The long and short term goals of HCEDC, Powell said, were to continue reaching out to Hope and Hempstead County’s 500 plus businesses, to both become more educated and pass information along to businesses about Artificial Intelligence, to educate the public about the need for a bond issue and to begin a survey of local businesses toward the end of the year. 

In the question and answer portion of the presentation, Powell said that our area’s lack of water capacity has caused some prospects to move on from considering locating here. This would again point up the need for a tax to provide funds for infrastructure upgrades. 

Powell ended her talk by saying there was also a need sometimes by her office to dispel disinformation. She asked for those hearing dire rumors involving economic development to contact her office for clarification.