In the past two weeks, we’ve heard two positive conversations about growing the business community in Covington.

If these plans come together, city officials could begin the, admittedly-long, process of redeveloping and growing the city’s retail scene.

Last week, the board of directors of the Main Street Covington program met at their semi-annual retreat to discuss how the organization could be a more effective advocate for the downtown. With the advice and encouragement of City Manager Leigh Anne Knight and councilwomen Janet Goodwin and Ocie Franklin, the board agreed to work on instituting measures to increase economic development efforts downtown and, in an effort to aid that, reorganize the board leadership to provide added support to Director Josephine Kelly.

This past Monday, Mayor Ronnie Johnston unveiled his three-point program to encourage business growth by actively recruiting retail business and using incentives to seal the deal. His plan also called for efforts to promote home building in the city and workforce training for those considered unemployable with their current skills and knowledge.

If we, at the paper, can help in any way with these promising efforts, we’ll do so, and we also encourage other organizations to step up to the plate and collaborate on making the city more vibrant.

This county has suffered greatly during an economic downturn that’s going on five years; however, these recent actions by our leaders show us that the energy and excitement remains locally to keep fighting for a breakthrough.

That’s a great sign in itself.