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By Florence Rankin

flo.rankin@gaflnews.com



TIFTON – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development staff for the state of Georgia met in Tifton Monday as part of the executive director’s plan to hold meetings around the state.

“I just came in on March 12,” said Rural Development Executive Director Stone Workman. “I want to bring people out of the state office. This is a great opportunity to see the places where we’re doing our work.”

The Tifton meeting, hosted by the City of Tifton, was the second to be held away from the Atlanta area. The first was in Workman’s hometown of Monticello.

Staff members held the meeting in the city council’s chambers and met with city and county leaders during a luncheon at Harper’s Restaurant. About 20 USDA staffers attended.

USDA Rural Development awards loans and grants to finance single-family homes, multi-family complexes and infrastructure in six districts statewide.

“This is real USDA country we’re in,” Tifton Mayor Paul Johnson told Workman. “We’re right in the middle of row-cropping agriculture here. In the past, when we’ve had a need for something specific, we’ve been told there was not too much money here per capita.

“And of course, everybody’s got problems with an educated workforce, and we have continuing needs for improvements in infrastructure.”

Workman said his wife recently served on a jury for a Monticello divorce case and heard one of the lawyers describe marriage as “two mules chained together, plowing through life.

“That’s how Rural Development will be with (local government). We’ll be like two mules plowing together,” Workman said.

City Manager Charles Howell asked Workman if he could look into a local problem concerning areas available for USDA funding.

“Over the City of Tifton and contiguous urbanized areas, there’s a big cross-hatched region where none of your programs can be utilized,” Howell said. “…We’ve heard that in North Georgia small towns don’t have this same type of restriction. So if you would look into that for us, we would appreciate it.”



To contact city editor Florence Rankin, call 382-4321, ext. 209.