Last Wednesday, January 9th was a remarkable day for Canton. Two very important events involving City Council were held simultaneously, one in Canton and one in Atlanta.

For a couple of months there had been a joint meeting scheduled between the Cobb-Marietta Water Authority and the Canton City Council. The meeting's purpose was to wrap up and agree on the details for the final projects needed to complete the reservoir. All members of the Water Authority and the City Council were planning to attend.

Then about two weeks ago the Council received an invitation to attend an all day Economic Development Leadership Training Seminar at the Georgia Resource Center in Atlanta; for the same day as the Reservoir meeting! Because both events were very important to the future of the city, some Council members attended one and some attended the other.

At the Reservoir meeting, one of the things that Cobb-Marietta wanted to establish was if the City desired to keep the reservoir. Over the past several years there has been considerable effort expended by some members of the Council to sell our portion due to financial concerns. Cobb wanted to establish once and for all what our intentions were. Those Council members in attendance were able to speak with confidence that it was now the unanimous desire of the City Council to keep the reservoir. Everyone in Canton's city government has worked very hard over the past 5 years, tightening our belts and going above and beyond the call so that we now feel confident we will be able to pay for our portion of the reservoir.

Everyone left the meeting with a renewed sense of optimism and teamwork to move forward with establishing the day to day operating procedures of the reservoir. It was announced that Canton is now able to draw water from the reservoir. Some other good news is that construction of the reservoir's public boat launch is nearing completion and is expected to open in March.

The three council members and two Canton citizens who attended the Economic Development Training had a great day as well. We were treated to an all star line up of experts from  Georgia Power's Resource Center www.selectgeorgia.com/pdf/garesourcecenter.pdf, the Georgia Department of Economic Development, and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.

The all day program was designed specifically for Cherokee County and was organized by Misti Martin, President of the Cherokee Office of Economic Development. Misti's group and the Cherokee County Development Authority do an outstanding job bringing business and industry to our county and the cities within. The City of Canton will soon be establishing our own Office of Economic Development to serve and promote our existing businesses and potential new businesses on the local level. All members of Council agree that this will greatly benefit our city and will bring us in line with what most other comparable cities are already doing in this field.

City Manager Scott Wood is developing the job description for the Director of Canton's Office of Economic Development. Mr. Wood will be assisted by Canton citizens TJ Cochran and Clark Yaggy, and by Council members Hooky Huffman and Glen Cummins.

Wednesday was a very productive day for our city. All members of Council are in full agreement and are fully committed to moving our city forward in both of these areas.

Also, there are some more positive and exciting things happening in Canton in addition to these two. Watch this space for more reports. As always, you can reach me at bill.bryan@canton-georgia.com or call 770-827-0048.