BY LU ANN FRANKLIN, Times of Northwest Indiana Correspondent
PORTAGE | Community economic development projects in Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties seeking federal stimulus funding now have a set of goals and measurable objectives to follow.
On Friday, the newly-renamed Northwest Indiana Economic Development District approved a draft of those goals and objectives and made them part of the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy.
The NWIEDD is a nonprofit economic development district formed late last year by the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission and the private Northwest Indiana Forum to get dibs on millions of dollars in federal Economic Development Administration grants for projects ranging from disaster relief to restoring brownfields for industrial development.
John Swanson, NIRPC executive director, said the region missed out on EDA grants for disaster relief after the September 2008 floods, for instance, because it lacked such a development district. Last year, the EDA disbursed $779.9 million to projects across the country. Indiana economic development districts reaped $5 million, but Northwest Indiana got nothing.
The deadline for the first project submission to Northwest Indiana's new Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy is 4:30 p.m. Feb. 12.
"There will be other opportunities for projects (to be submitted for the EDA funding)," said Donald Koliboski, director of economic development for the Northwest Indiana Forum.
"It's an ongoing process."
The draft approved by the NWIEDD highlights eight goals and a series of objectives for each goal that need to be accomplished within the next five years. These goals include
-- Maximize technology, productivity and efficiency of existing core industries
-- Create diverse, emerging and sustainable industries
-- Strengthen public/private partnerships resulting in increased regional investment
-- Redevelop urban core areas
-- Utilization of transportation and other infrastructure advantages
-- Promote growth that protects and enhances the environmental assets of Northwest Indiana
-- Develop a work force that is motivated and flexible, earning sustainable or higher wages and actively engaged in skill advancement and lifelong learning
-- Recreate a region desirable for business to locate and people to live and work.
The NWIEDD also approved the scoring process each project will go through when submitted. This scoring document is based on several that have already been approved by the EDA.
Scores will be awarded to each project submitted based on eight criteria, said Tim Gropp, executive director of the Greater LaPorte Economic Development Corp. The criteria include unemployment, per capita income, population growth, project category, project readiness, environmental, spatial impact and matching fund availability.
Both the scoring and goals/objectives documents will go through a public review where comments will be recorded. Those comments will be incorporated into the documents, said NWIEDD Chairman Dewey Pearman, executive director of the Construction Advancement Foundation.
The organization will then review the revised documents.