Last evening 32 Ontonagon County residents came together for the second time in two weeks to discuss ways to improve the economic future of the county.

The meeting was once again led by Frank Wardynski the MSU County Extension Agent. At the last meeting an action committee was formed to set the direction of the venture, including the hiring of a Community Development Director and ways to fund the enterprise.

The first item discussed was to name the project and define its mission.

Ontonagon County Economic Partnership Team was chosen for the project. The mission of the project is to provide leadership towards starting actions that promote and develop Ontonagon county as a thriving and diverse economic community.

The five person action committee decided that the person that they would seek would be someone who be a take charge individual, and one that would knock on doors and do whatever it takes to bring businesses and jobs to the county.

The group developed a job description for the Developer position and reviewed the available avenues that could be used to raise the needed money to both seed the project and sustain the project for at least five years.

The committee members went on the Internet to review what other communities similar to Ontonagon were looking for in a Community Development Director. They took pieces of several descriptions and pasted them together.

They group decided on the title as the Ontonagon County Economic and Community Development Director.

As for funding the group is looking to form a private LLC as one method of raising the funding. It is believed that private investment would be a faster method of capitalizing the Partnership.

Another suggestion was that each township, village and other county entities could contribute a percentage of their budgets to create the funding. The reasoning being that the partnership would eliminate many of the countywide EDC’s and Planning Committees.

Development and installation of programs

It was stated that the project would require about $350,000 per year and that it might require a combination of private and public funding. It was pointed out that the EDC could hire the Director in lieu of an executive secretary. The county which provides the housing for the EDC could do so for the Partnership. That many of the public and private entities interested in supporting the project could make donations in material and services in lieu of cash. At the previous meeting Norm Pestka offered to provide the first $20,000 for the project.

There were those at the meeting that thought that it would be difficult to have private investment year after year to sustain the project. Others believed that the local municipalities were already being squeezed with the reduction of local revenue sharing.

It was felt that one of the first things that needed was to put together booklet of community assets, profiling each community in the county. The Community Development Director could provide the booklet to prospective business owners and when one showed interest the Director would work closely with the business owner of management.

Jay Brogan, a former Ontonagon resident, spoke to the group about a similar project in Munising where he now resides. He works for and is on the Board of Hiawatha Communications, which owns Ontonagon Telephone Company.

He told the audience that a similar project was undertaken in Munising a few years ago. He stated that the project was funded by several of the area’s Tourism Bureaus. They hired a Director who did bring some timber and timber related businesses to the area. The director that they hired had political connections which Brogan felt was a must. The person they hired had to leave the area for personal reasons, but everyone was satisfied with what he had accomplished. Brogan told the group that Munising was still struggling, but nothing like that of Ontonagon. Brogan thinks Ontonagon is headed in the right direction and suggested that the committees contact the telephone company for advice when they felt it was necessary.

More Action committees .

It was decided that more committees needed to make the plan work. Six or Seven new committees were formed last night with many volunteers signing on.