West Central Mountains Economic Development Council

Monthly Meeting: March 1, 2018

Location: Donnelly (cancelled due to weather, but proxy vote was held on the following topics)

CONSENT AGENDA:

  • Treasurer’s Report
  • February Minutes

REGULAR AGENDA:

  • Please send Andrew any questions you may have regarding the Housing Trust report and he’ll pass them along to Chance.
  • Vote to approve the allocation of funds ($2,905 total, to date) received from the Idaho Department of Labor through the Cascade Medical Cluster grant to reimburse recipients for CNA and paramedic training.
  • Vote to accept the City of McCall’s nomination of Thom Sowers, replacing Bob Giles as the City’s representative.
  • Vote to approve applying for a $15,000 grant from the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation for assistance with our regional Gap analysis and workforce development initiatives.
  • Vote to allocate up to $400 for website updates. Andrew met with McKenzie and she thinks it will take 3-4 hours (likely less than $300 total) to upgrade our website and make it ready to build out better navigation and resources for us to promote pathways, water trails, scenic byways and ADV biking. We’ll get an upgraded theme, better visibility and a more user friendly interface and backend. This could come from our marketing budget, if everyone agrees, but please note that we will bill some of this back to the Cascade Chamber’s ITC grant (proportionally) because it falls into the ADV biking project budget.

GENERAL UPDATES FOR DISCUSSION AT APRIL MEETING:

  • Fund authorization protocol: Don
  • 5th of July meeting rescheduling
  • Sewer discussion: Donnelly project and regional capacity/policy challenges
  • Opportunity Zones (we are assisting the county with this application): https://commerce.idaho.gov/communities/opportunity-zones/
  • NACo Conference in Sun Valley: http://www.naco.org/events/2018-wir-conference
  • Woody Biomass project update: the County has appropriated funds for us to move forward with a go-to-market strategy. This will include several partnerships through Idaho’s Small Business Development Center.
  • Update on workforce development and career/technical education initiatives–tabled until meetings with the state and school districts can be rescheduled.
  • Monument sign update
  • Our Net Neutrality letter has gone a little viral. IEDA agreed to have it’s membership sign on to the letter and it will be distributed to Idaho’s Congressional delegation.
  • Rec district update

ALL ITEMS RECOMMENDED FOR APPROVAL BY CYNDA HERRICK, SECONDED BY SECONDED BY GENE TYLER, QUORUM INTACT, ALL YEAH’S, ALL ITEMS PASSED ON MARCH 1ST, 2018 AT 5:30PM.