Beaufort County has issues. The good news is that Beaufort County also has assets.

Opinion ricocheted around the Multipurpose Room at Beaufort County Community College on Thursday night as community members voiced the qualities that hold Beaufort County back, as well as those that continue to project it forward.

It was the second meeting of a proposed schedule of six forums to be held by the Golden LEAF Foundation, the steward organization created to oversee funds from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, in which the four largest U.S. tobacco companies agreed to pay a minimum of $206 billion to the states as recompense for tobacco-related health-care costs. Since the foundation’s inception, Golden LEAF has funded more than a thousand grants, totaling more than $517 million, for projects that bolster North Carolina’s economy, with a particular emphasis on rural and/or economically distressed areas with a tobacco-dependent past.

Beaufort County’s turn on Golden LEAF’s Community Assistance Initiative, a $2 million grants program, has arrived. The money has been set aside for the county’s use, as long as the community can find consensus on which projects will provide the biggest return on Golden LEAF investment.

“Consider yourself, your neighbor, your community,” read a handwritten sign posted on a wall before Thursday’s meeting began. As Calvin Allen, Golden LEAF program officer, began the initial foray into identifying the key issues or needs facing Beaufort County, the hands began to rise across the room. Pat Cabe, Golden LEAF’s vice president of programs, scribbled the called-out suggestions on an oversized easel pad. At certain times, the exchange of ideas was lightning fast, at other times, the room resonated with silence as those in attendance thought about the issues facing their community.

Sustainable jobs, improved infrastructure, access to technology, support for small business, affordable housing, keeping young people here, attracting more retirees, public safety, improved mental-health programs — the submissions continued until Allen asked the 70 people in attendance: “And your young people? What would they say?”

The many who answered were unanimous: “Jobs.”

Midway through the meeting, Allen and Cabe shifted focus, asking participants to list Beaufort County’s assets.  The responses ranged from “the Pamlico,” “the Pungo” and “all the tributaries,” to the lighter side of “Bill’s Hot Dogs.”

The walls of the room were filled with pages of the community’s thoughts — positive and negative — about the community, when Cabe announced an off-the-cuff summary of the meeting, narrowing down the many suggestions, which at first glance had little in common, into a preliminary finding of the four key issues facing the county: economic development and infrastructure, education and workforce development, health and wellness, social and people services.

“I get the feeling y’all aren’t quite ready to make some decisions,” Cabe said, regarding the next stage of the process that would narrow focus and decide direction.

State Sen. Stan White, D-Dare, in the area on family business, attended the meeting.

“I just wanted to find out what the issues are in Beaufort County,” he said. “It’s always nice to be around a group, besides politicians, who aren’t self-serving and are all working for the betterment of the community.”

“Government’s not going to help,” he continued, in reference to the current economic environment, “It’s going to be the people themselves doing the brunt of the work.”

Golden LEAF founding board member Lawrence Davenport, there to observe the grant process starting in the county so close to his Pactolus home, gestured to the writing on the walls. He addressed the crowd, saying of Allen and Cabe,“They have tricked you — you have bared your souls. You’ve laid all your cards on the table.”

At the next Golden LEAF meeting, at 6 p.m. Dec. 8, the community decides which of those many cards stay on the table.