Liberty County Judge Jay Knight is quickly settling in and already hard at work Thursday afternoon, Jan. 8, near the end of his first full week in office, and while Administrative Assistant Dede Taylor may still have to help him find the right button to push when he needs to answer the phone, Knight is eager to get on top of the bigger challenges he and the county commissioners will face in the new year.

I want to work on economic development, Knight said, and he wants to focus on the long term, looking 10 to 15 years down the road.

He spent nine years on the board of the Dayton Community Development Corporation (DCDC) and wants to use his position as county judge to facilitate more cooperation between the DCDC, the Liberty Community Development Corporation (LCDC), and the Cleveland Economic Development Corporation (EDC).

What were trying to do now is not have the DCDC and the one in Cleveland and the LCDC all working separately, but all working together through the auspices of the county judges office, he said.

Acknowledging there is, and always will be, some competition between the cities, Knight is committed to encouraging cooperation, too, explaining that growth anywhere in the county will benefit everyone living here. Besides the traditional rivalry between the cities of Liberty and Dayton, he worries that the folks in Cleveland may feel they are sometimes treated as if they are a not even a part of Liberty County, and he said he wants to work to overcome that.

Getting the three working together and keeping them working together is my goal, he said.

Describing his plans, Knight quoted President John F. Kennedys line, A rising tide raises all boats.

He wants to promote industrial development. The potential for the growth of industry here is our future, he said, while adding, I dont want to lose our identity, meaning Liberty County as a rural and agricultural area.

Thursday afternoon, the county judge talked a bit about his late father, Joe Knight. Family was on his mind, as it would be since his mother, Mary Knight, had passed away only the night before.

Joe Knight was the manager for American Rice Growers in Dayton for more than three decades, and Judge Knight recalled his fathers reaction in 1979 when he first learned of President Jimmy Carters declaration of the grain embargo against Russia, and the elder Knight told his son, The way of life you grew up with here just ended.

Originally posted here:

Liberty County judge looking toward economic development