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Information Distributed by the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors
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Board meetings are held in the Board Room on the first floor of the Loudoun County Government Center 1 Harrison Street, S.E. in Leesburg. Click here to view the Loudoun County Government Master Calendar A message from Chairman At-Large Supervisor Scott K. York Dear Friends,
As I write this I am in Germany on a multi-purpose mission to expand the presence of Loudoun County into one of the largest marketplace in Europe. In order to reduce the burden of taxes on homeowners and put some balance in the growth of our county we would need to attract quality, high value businesses to Loudoun. Our county is very strategically located as we are part of the Washington Region and are home to Dulles International Airport and I believe we need to take great advantage of that.
To date, the county has been successful attracting a number of quality businesses to Loudoun. But we need to maintain a continuous outreach effort. A large part of our business community is foreign and while we continually prospect for domestic companies to locate in Loudoun, we have also begun an effort to introduce Loudoun County to the world.
When one looks at the current makeup of foreign businesses already in Loudoun, it’s quickly apparent that Europe makes up the largest component and Germany is one of the largest source of European businesses in the county. At last count we have about 50 international businesses here. When asked why they chose Loudoun they almost all agreed that the reason they located here was for the quality of life, access to an international airport, our infrastructure and the overall business-friendly climate.
In 2005 I was offered an opportunity to visit Germany for the first time by a German-born local businessman to introduce Loudoun County to markets in Southern Germany. The very positive response I received led to the Board funding and appointing our first “International Business Ambassador” who arranged for a number of introductions to business and Chamber of Commerce contacts in the Frankfurt region. As a result of those meetings we met “Landrat” Berthold Gall, the elected head of Main-Taunus-Kreis, or the “County of Main Taunus” which we call “MTK” for short.
MTK sits just to the west of the City of Frankfurt and resembles Loudoun in a striking number of ways. Their population of 230,000, reside in a number of small and medium-sized towns and enjoy a very high standard of living. They are neighbors to Frankfurt International Airport and have an economy based upon a number of financial service, IT, life science, pharmaceutical and precision manufacturing businesses. MTK is the new home of the Frankfurt “Borse” or stock exchange.
During a reciprocal visit by MTK officials to Loudoun, we were invited to form a formal ‘Sister County’ partnership with them to expand our knowledge of one another through deeper contacts in educational, cultural and business relationships. We signed this agreement in October of 2006 and have been progressing since then through business introductions and student exchanges on both sides.
My current visit has consisted of a series of intensive meetings with existing partners and an outreach to new, interested parties. I am accompanied this trip by Georgia Graves, President of Bridgman Communications who is representing the Loudoun County Economic Development Commission and the Committee for Dulles, Cheryl Kilday and Christine Geno of the Loudoun Convention and Visitors Association who have maintained a heavy schedule the past few days marketing Loudoun as a tourist and convention destination, Beth Hain from our Department of Economic Development and by my personal Aide, Keith Nusbaum. In the past four days we have met with FrankfurtRheinMain Gmbh, the premier marketing institution for Central Germany, Industrie-und Handelskammer, or IHK, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, also IHK-Mittelfranken-Nurnberg the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Nuremberg and Central Frankonia, Frankfurt Airport representatives and Rehau representatives.
We also met with the Directors of the largest hospital in MTK, a number of State of Hessen and local education leaders from both the public schools and a technical university, representatives of the largest industrial center for medicine and custom chemical manufacturing in Europe, disaster management officials, energy management specialists operating schools and office buildings that use a fraction of the energy required by conventional buildings, representatives of medium and large businesses expressing an interest in Loudoun, a massive brownfield reclamation project, a solid waste co-generation energy facility, and MTK political and administration officials. The very positive reception we have received has been overwhelming.
This trip was largely supported by private funding from our business community and I would like to take the opportunity to thank The George Washington University Virginia Campus, Inova Loudoun Hospital, the B. F. Saul Company, Fortessa Inc., M. C. Dean, The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority, The Committee for Dulles and most of all Mrs. Georgia Graves and Bridgman Communications.
We are look forward to welcoming a delegation of journalists from Main-Taunus-Kreis in May and are planning for the next visit of “Student Partners” from MTK schools in the fall. The Partnership has shown that despite the ocean between us we are similar people, interested in one another, willing to reach out in friendship to make the world a better place. If you have a student in high school and would like for them to have an exciting opportunity to be part of an exchange program please contact Keith Nusbaum in my office at 703-771-5988.
Below is the action summary from the April 15 Board meeting. I was pleased that the Board approved the action items concerning energy efficiency. I also want to thank the students who participated in Youth in Government Day. This is a wonderful program that provides some students an opportunity to see many aspects of their local government.
Until next time, Scott
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