How can we help you today?

It’s the appropriate greeting to hear as a customer walks into a store.

The question signals that the store is willing to cater to the customer’s needs. It shows that the focus is on the customer, not the store.

But what if the store clerk walks up and says, “Welcome to Wilhelmina’s Widgets. We’ve got every widget you’ve ever needed.” Then the clerk walks off to a back room, leaving the customer to wander through all those widgets looking for exactly what they may need.

The first customer is likely to find what they need, like the store and come back next time. The second may not.

Natchez-Adams County is the shop. And the customers may just be passing us by for better customer service elsewhere.

Visit www.cdfms.org/ — the economic development Web site of Tupelo and Lee County — and you can practically see the store’s clerk leaving her post behind the register, walking up to you, extending her hand and saying “How can we help you today?”

The first screen that pops up on the Tupelo site literally features that question — “How can we help you today?”

Visitors can type in the answer to that question and the site brings up a variety of answers.

Type: “I want to open a restaurant,” and you are greeted with a list of available buildings and a link to the “Small Business Boot Camp.”

Visit the Natchez-Adams County economic development site and you see the words, “Ready. Willing. Able.”

Sounds nice, but it’s the equivalent of the shop owner saying, “We’ve got it all,” but showing you nothing.

Of course, you can’t judge a book by its cover, or it’s Web site homepage, but in this case the cover may say it all.

For two months Natchez and Adams County have been squabbling over the Economic Development Authority.

The city and county boards came together in early February in what everyone hoped would be the first of several “hash it out” meetings. Both sides have said they want to talk about restructuring the EDA, but no plan is in place.

Tuesday, several county leaders said they saw no rush in meeting on the issue. No joint meeting is planned.

In the meantime, who is walking up to the customer?

The EDA doesn’t have a director. The EDA board — all unpaid volunteers — would have a very hard time hiring a director who would know he could quickly lose his job if the county decides to cut funding at the end of the fiscal year.

While our store clerks argue, customers are walking out.

The Community Development Foundation in Tupelo is easily among the most successful in the state, perhaps the country.

The foundation handles economic development, chamber of commerce duties, community projects and more.

It began in 1948 when 88 businessmen decided to merge several agencies that offered a duplication of services.

And, as its Web site says, for the first 20 years, CDF personnel in the rural livestock community answered their telephone “Community Development Foundation and Artificial Insemination Program.”

But it wasn’t the artificial insemination or even the great idea that made Tupelo what it is today.

Their success, they’ll tell you, was based on teamwork, dedication and a plan.

When is the Natchez-Adams County community going to make our plan?

Julie Cooper is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.