Time and Attendance

Meeting start and finish: 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Members Present(alphabetical order): Don Bailey (City of McCall), Thea Belecz (for Ken Minshall, City of Donnelly), David Carey (McCall Area Chamber),Scotty Davenport (Cascade Chamber), Ken Minshall (City of Donnelly), David

Papiez (member at large), Rob Terry (City of Cascade), Bill Willey (unincorporated Valley County), Willem Braak (non-voting/UI Extension).
Members absent:  with notice: Karla Miller (member at large)
Non-members present (part or all of the meeting): Chris Danley (Vitruvian Planning), Michelle Groenevelt, Delta James, Cynda Herrick, Dwight Jividen, Keith Lannom, Gary Swain, Bill Weida,
Presiding: David Papiez

Decisions and notable points

Adoption of Strategic Plan

David Papiez stepped the council through the action items resulting from the Strategic Plan (attached to these minutes).  Some of the discussion is grouped under the Subcommittee updates. The Strategic Plan was adopted by the council without changes.

Payette River Scenic Corridor Management Plan

Issue: The Payette River Scenic Byway is doing an update of its Corridor Management Plan. This plan will help define goals and implementation priorities in topic areas ranging from transportation safety & traveler amenities to marketing & economic development. The Byway team recruited Chris Danley from Vitruvian Planning to help them creating their plan and is now transitioning into the economic development aspect of the effort. Chris stepped the ED Council through the current status. The discussion identified some overlap areas, specifically in:

• Wayfinding (signage for visitors and recreation) along the Hwy 55 corridor.  The channeling effect of traffic along Hwy 55 provides a unique opportunity to reach recreation visitors and tourists.  The council discussed the creation of new communications mechanisms to reach these travelers and provide information akin to the regional calendar of events.
• Assisting communities to develop vibrant downtowns that would entice visitors to stop and explore.
• Regional Branding would be another area of overlap; the byway committee represents the broader region and might have the critical mass to spearhead such a project. The council had specifically excluded this subject from its strategic plan especially because it did not feel it had that critical mass.
• Lastly, the meeting also discussed the overlap in developing a land-use vision that would create a balance between preservation of viewscape versus economic utilization of productive lands, and doing so in a manner that respects property rights. Chris mentioned the useful information that the byway committee gained from the experience of Boise where they used land trusts to create the Boise Foothills amenities.

Sub Committee updates

• VCED Structure Formalization – David Papiez reporting: David, Bill Willey and Don Baley met in early August and started inquiries on recruiting legal help to finalize a 501c(4) and potentially a parallel c(3) construction before the end of the calendar year. If there is any feedback before the next meeting, David will distribute that information to the council. This subject will have a progress report at the next meeting. Rob Terry urged the council to include a c(3) construction to assist local efforts with grant applications, and requested the council make a decision to include that status by next meeting or request a sub team (like the VC Energy Team) to pursue 501c(3) status.
• New-Business Contest – Bill Weida reporting: the project team had met last week and was committed to go forward. The team saw this first (2014) contest definitely as a pilot to learn from and to establish an annual program rather than a single event.
• Energy Team – Scotty Davenport reporting:  the energy team is organizing a voluntary ground probing program to inventory geothermal hotspots to be held in October. This limited study would be funded by property owners and is tentatively budgeted at $3,500. David Carey suggested that this information be made more widely available; Jug Mountain Ranch may also be interested in participating, and perhaps other regions might also. Scotty also mentioned the efforts of Idaho Power to update a long term investment plan for the region. Several members had attended the first informational meeting, and the consensus was that it would be important to align Idaho Power’s planning to the region’s economic development strategy.  Chris Dailey mentioned how the individual members of the council could bring back the strategic plan to their communities to be incorporated in their comprehensive plan.
• Land-use visioning – Bill Weida reporting:  DEQ’s reaction to a larger watershed management area to include the area from McCall all the way to Banks was very favorable.  Since the Payette River is a huge factor in all economic sectors in the area, from recreation to farming, a watershed management that includes all stakeholders in the region would provide an important platform for the economic health of the region.  Bill asked the Council to give some thought to who these regional stakeholders may be and provide him with the names for possible inclusion in the effort.

Administrative Management

With Wim leaving, the following issues were discussed:

•  Minutes & notes taking should be a separate responsibility within the council, but can at least on a transitional basis be managed by having the meeting host (cities or county) provide note taking services.
• Wim will continue updating the website on a demand basis for the rest of the calendar year or until the council finds a replacement – whichever comes first. Web maintenance is at most a few hours per month. This transition should be months.

Several council members felt that it was important to find a (part-time) director for the group to keep projects on target and provide assistance to the council. The tentative decision was to (1) explore the funding options through county and city, specifically in allocating this year’s unused funds, (2) explore recruiting of local talent to coincide with the formalization of the council (David Papiez, Bill Willey, Don Bailey and Bill Weida – the latter when available).

September meeting

• David to contact Kendra Kenyon & Randy Shroll and establish the agenda
• Don Bailey will preside; he will also organize note taking.

Round Table, Calendar & Public Input

Round Table

• Next McCall Downtown workshops: November 5-7
• Friday Sept 7: Cascade Walking tour of the Strand with Ilan Shamir (featured artist)