5/23/05: Public/Private Partnership Strategies

LAS VEGAS-It's a tricky process, fraught with pitfalls, and much depends on it in many communities, general sessions agreed. Then there's the Wal-Mart factor."Some are ecstatic to get something like a Wal-Mart," says Karen M. Miller, a county commissioner of Boone County, MO and immediate past president of the National Association of Counties. But she cautioned that big boxes tend to work better in bigger communities, that there are problems in the smaller communities, where the impact on smaller retailers can be more dramatic.