July 25, 2012 Advisory Council – Donnelly

by | Aug 1, 2012 | Meetings & Minutes

Time and Attendance

Meeting start and finish:

1:20PM – 3:00PM

Members Present (alphabetical order):

Don Baily (City of McCall), David Carey (McCall Chamber), Dick Carter (City of Cascade), Scotty Davenport (Cascade Chamber), Wendy Davenport (rotating member: City of Donnelly), Ken Minshall (rotating member: City of Donnelly), Ray More (unincorporated Valley County), Julie Steinberg (Donnelly Chamber)

Members absent:

none

Non-members present:

Michelle Groenevelt, Todd Hatfield

Facilitator (no voting rights):

Willem Braak, UI Extension, Valley County

Decisions and notable points from the 7/25 meeting

Charter

The Advisory Council accepted a tentative “working charter” which will be re-evaluated and/or refined after three months to also tie into a formal mission.

The Advisory Council will advance conditions and actions that:

  1. Allow Valley County communities, businesses and organizations to act more cohesively towards an improved local economy; 
  2. Solicit or assist projects that substantially strengthen the local economy (through business stimulation; community & infrastructure development; sector development)
  3. Inspire and solicit creative (“outside the box”) solutions for issues at hand.

Ground rules

Decision making/agreement; member interaction and participation

The Advisory Council discussed and agreed to work with a (limited) set of ground rules to make meetings more effective. More rules can be added later if deemed necessary. The adopted rules were:

  1. Start on time, end on time
  2. Limit side conversations
  3. Different opinions are welcome
  4. Disagree here and now, not afterwards
  5. Challenge ideas or relevance, not people
  6. Silence = agreement
  7. Follow through on action plans

When a decision is necessary and reasonable effort does not yield a consensus, majority decisions are acceptable as long as the minority opinion(s) can “live with” the majority position.

Meeting frequency

To develop momentum the Advisory Council will meet monthly for at least three months, after which the frequency will be re-evaluated. Meetings will be held every fourth Wednesday of the month at 1:00 PM, rotating from Donnelly (1st meeting), McCall (2nd), Cascade (3d) and starting again unless other locations (like Yellow Pine) are added ad-hoc.

Chair

The Advisory Council asked the current facilitator (UI Extension) to chair the first three meetings and thus allow more thought and preparation on choosing a council chair.  A decision on chair selection and rotation will be made at the September (3d) meeting. The 4th meeting will then be chaired by one of the council members.

Minutes

The Advisory Council realizes that taking notes for detailed minutes that include individual contributions and remarks cannot be combined with active meeting participation.  The council asked the facilitator to create a simple summary of notable points and decisions for the first three meetings. A final decision on minutes will be made at the September meeting.

Public input and transparency in decision making

The Advisory Council adopted to reserve the first 10 minutes of every meeting for non-council/public comments and input. Meetings will be announced through web and email. After the first three meetings the council will evaluate if additional meeting announcements (for example through the local newspaper) are useful or necessary.

All decisions and notable discussions will be published through the website.

Tasks at hand

Members at large

The original discussions of the ED group at large suggested candidates who had participated in the workshops. The council did not reject that approach, but did not want to limit itself to that pool either. Two approaches were discussed.

  1. Select or solicit members based on sector representation or expertise: suggestions ranged from the non-profit sector (includes education), to the recreation sector (the largest driver behind many for-profit sectors) or the expertise of an economist;
  2. Select or solicit from the meeting at large as well as the general public and request a letter of interest.

The council decided to merge the two approaches. Julie Steinberg will draft an invitation to solicitation with feedback/input from David Carey and Ray Moore.

Website

The Advisory Council voted for ValleyCountyDevelopment.org.

  • Public input at the end of the meeting (Todd Hatfield; paraphrased): not having the word “economic” in the VCDC acronym or website makes the connection to economic development (the specific mission of the council) unclear.
  • NOTE: the domain names ValleyCountyDevelopment.org and ValleyEdc.org were both claimed and both will redirect to the same site; the council can make a more definitive choice at a later point in time.

Project evaluation

The Advisory Council realizes that it should initiate or evaluate a diversity of projects within the first year to provide a balanced approach to economic development (i.e. projects targeting business stimulation; community development & infrastructure; sector development). The council also realizes, however, that it may need to tackle projects sequentially at first, and that early projects should cover as many tangents as practical.

 

One such project would be regional branding: branding could help the recreation sector in all communities; create a regional image for business start or relocation prospects; promote regional cohesion and cooperation. The “branding” project (also nicknamed marketing 101) had also surfaced a few times during workshops (for example: in relation to the signage for recreation, relocation brochures, advancing the recreation sector, helping business recruitment and relocation).

 

The Advisory Council therefore decided to solicit input from their communities/chambers, explore options for professional help and at the next meeting discuss how to initiate and potentially fund such a “branding” project.  The council specifically noted that, even though final execution of the project is not necessarily a task of the council, it is desirable to have the council be involved in this project to ensure that the strategic direction of the project has the wide regional and business input and support that the council represents.