Good ideas can spur economic development

A key to growth and economic development in a community is someone who is willing to work to turn a good idea into reality.

By Sandra Wisecaver
Times-News correspondent

Hagerman has an IDEA, a Improvement Development Education and Appreciation Inc. committee whose members decided good suggestions should become a realities. This project and numerous other rural community development projects were highlighted at a Regional Rural Development Partners Forum in Hagerman this week.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne in January signed an executive order reorganizing the Idaho Rural Partnership, and Idaho’s U.S. senators secured federal funding to promote economic development in rural Idaho. Under Kempthorne’s Rural Economic Development Initiative in 2001, the state invested more than $3.9 million in projects across Idaho to attract and retain businesses and employees. The state also hired 12 economic development specialists who live and work in rural communities to assist cities and counties in their economic diversification and expansion.

In Hagerman, IDEA, which also serves as the Hagerman Gem Community committee, decided the first project should be to provide downtown public parking, to encourage travelers to stop in Hagerman to patronize downtown businesses.

IDEA goals are to improve the quality of life in Hagerman, develop area resources, educate workers as well as children, promote appreciation of the region’s unique beauty and promote investment in the community.

"It was formed by a residents who were disappointed that good ideas for the community seldom materialized," said Jim Scott, a rural economic development specialist for 12 Magic Valley communities. "What was needed was a group of people who financially and physically committed to a project and motivated to make things happen."

The committee helped businessman Gary Chappel develop a plan to build a new grocery store in downtown Hagerman, to include a public parking lot. Chappel purchased land upon which he is building his 12,600-square-foot store, and three additional lots which he donated to the city. The value of the three donated lots, $129,000, served a match value for grants through the Idaho Department of Commerce.

IDEA, on behalf of the city of Hagerman, applied for and was awarded a $50,000 Gem Community Implementation Grant and a $220,000 Rural Community Block Grant, based on the donation of the three lots, the potential for job creation with the larger store and possible creation of a new business in the old store.

Progress elsewhere

Other rural projects highlighted at this week’s forum included the business development of Rocky Mountain Hardware in Shoshone; Buhl’s downtown revitalization project partially funded by a community development grant; and a Gem Community grant in Fairfield for an industrial park, home to a company which develops and sells PVC pipe products worldwide and a company manufacturing and marketing high-tech carpenter’s levels.

In Rupert a Gem Community grant was secured to help Project Mutual Telephone renovate a building that had been empty for six years, a project which will add 10 to 14 jobs, said Sherri Miles, community economic developer. A new Subway restaurant in Rupert added another six to eight jobs. When Magic Valley Foods closed a fresh-pack potato plant, the facility was purchased by Idahoan Foods, saving 125 jobs.

"We are small, but I feel we are headed in the right direction," Miles said. "Saving even one job is a huge thing for us."

Economic development in Rupert began with the closure of the Roper’s store in 1997.

"It was a cornerstone of the community," Miles said. "We were devastated. It was a huge wake-up call."

An estimated 200 people volunteered to work toward beautification, quality of life, education and business retention.

Jerome Development Corp. was founded in 1954, and the Jerome Economic Task Force started in the 1960s, said Bob Richards, Jerome’s economic development director.

"Between those two, a lot of community development was done which led to the economic developments we are experiencing now," Richards said. "In the early 1980s (we said), ‘We are going to have to build something if we want people to come to town,’ so they started the first industrial park on the southwest side of Jerome."

Jerome has now filled three industrial parks.

"Because of those parks, Jerome has experienced over $250 million worth of private investment," Richards said. "That translates into 1,600 jobs, which for Jerome, which has a population of about 8,000 people inside the city limits, is a significant number of jobs."

Pushing ahead

Several small rural communities modeled development corporations after Jerome’s, said Cliff Long, a Commerce Department business development representative.

"You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You can learn from successful projects," he said.

There are more than 120 communities in the Gem program; 60 of those are active, said Jan Peter Blickenstaff, administrator for the department’s Rural and Community Development Division.

"Proposed cuts in the budget add up to 16 to 18 percent, and that effects our program," he said. "We have pretty much eliminated the film bureau, cut back severely on marketing, cut back on travel, the Brand Idaho program. As a last resort, $4,000 was cut from the rural package. The department will have to cut deeper.

"We lose our effectiveness of being out in the field, working in the communities. We are working to do more with less. We haven’t slowed up. We’re still moving ahead on all fronts as far as we can," he said.

The department is working to capitalize on Idaho’s lower workers’ compensation rates and lower power costs to attract out-of-state corporations, and working with people who want to see their communities achieve the completion of a project or provide better economic opportunities for residents.

To reach the Idaho Department of Commerce

* By phone: 1-800-842-5858

* By e-mail: http://www.idoc.state.id.us

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