Lif Strand
Catron County will receive its Certified Communities Initiative (CCI) Award from NM Economic Development Department (NMEDD) in January. The CCI glass plaque award will be received by Catron County Treasurer Sarah Merklein in Santa Fe during legislative session.
A grant of $5000 is also awarded for the CCI designation. These funds are earmarked for the Catron County Citizens Group (CCCG) to inventory businesses in the county. This work will begin once the funds are received by CCCG. It will involve identifying every business in Catron County and visiting each one to perform an economic survey, then compiling the data. The work must be completed by June 30, 2009.
The inventory will be available to NMEDD and Catron County, and will be used as part of the baseline for supporting local economic development. Participation by businesses is voluntary but is highly encouraged. As a reward for providing the information for the inventory, participating businesses will be provided a free listing in a Catron County Business Directory available online at www.catroncitizens.org/econdev and in printed form available around the county. If your business is interested in participating, please contact Lif Strand at econdev@catroncitizens.org or (575) 773-4835.
A public hearing for the K&B Economic Incentives Ordinance will be held at the February 4, 2009 Commission meeting. A copy of the Ordinance may be obtained at the County Commission office. This Ordinance is required by NM statute in order to set the stage for County’s receipt of capital outlay funding from NMEDD to construct a building at the County Sawmill outside of Reserve. K&B Timberworks has applied for the economic incentive of use of the building.
Catron County Citizens Group is sponsoring a 4-day endurance ride to be held May 21-24 near Quemado Lake. This ride is sanctioned by the American Endurance Ride Conference (AERC). The ride is managed by Lif Strand, with co-managers Ray and Kathy Sansom of Datil. Ray Sansom, a multi-champion endurance rider, is competing for his sixth national award and has been promoting the ride all over the west at the various races he attends. Kathy Sansom is the ride secretary. Work on identification and measuring (by GPS) of the 100 miles of trail is on hold until risk of snow is less. The website is up and working at www.discovercatron.com.
The CCCG website has been updated and a new CCCG calendar has been uploaded - check it out at www.catroncitizens.org/events.
Lif Strand is Catron County’s Local Economic Developer, designated by the Catron County Commission and under contract with the Catron County Citizens Group. Strand acts as liaison between local businesses and the County, and between the County and state and federal agencies involved with economic development. For more information: www.catroncitizens.org/econdev
Monday, January 26, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Legal Notice: Public Hearing, Economic Development Ordinance
LEGAL NOTICE
PUBLIC HEARING
Notice is hereby given that on the 4th day of February, 2009 at 1:30 PM the Catron County Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing to consider adopting an ordinance relating to the Economic Development Planning Ordinance 001-2008 adopted September 3, 2008.
The draft of "An Ordinance Adopting an Economic Development Project for Public Support of K&B Timberworks, Inc., A New Mexico Corporation" proposed ordinance number 001-2009 may be picked up for review at the Catron County Clerk's Office at 100 Main Street, Reserve, New Mexico or by contacting Bill Aymar, County Manager at (575) 533-6423.
Comments can be sent are to be submitted to Bill Aymar, County Manager, Catron County Commission Office, PO Box 507, Reserve New Mexico 87830. For more information contact Bill Aymar at (575) 533-6423 or by email at ccmanager@gilanet.com
s/s
Bill Aymar
County Manager
Silver City Daily Press
January 21, 2009
Mountain Mail
January 22, 2009
PUBLIC HEARING
Notice is hereby given that on the 4th day of February, 2009 at 1:30 PM the Catron County Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing to consider adopting an ordinance relating to the Economic Development Planning Ordinance 001-2008 adopted September 3, 2008.
The draft of "An Ordinance Adopting an Economic Development Project for Public Support of K&B Timberworks, Inc., A New Mexico Corporation" proposed ordinance number 001-2009 may be picked up for review at the Catron County Clerk's Office at 100 Main Street, Reserve, New Mexico or by contacting Bill Aymar, County Manager at (575) 533-6423.
Comments can be sent are to be submitted to Bill Aymar, County Manager, Catron County Commission Office, PO Box 507, Reserve New Mexico 87830. For more information contact Bill Aymar at (575) 533-6423 or by email at ccmanager@gilanet.com
s/s
Bill Aymar
County Manager
Silver City Daily Press
January 21, 2009
Mountain Mail
January 22, 2009
Friday, October 3, 2008
REDT 002 - Economic Development: A Team Effort
REDT post 002
Economic Development: A Team Effort
By Lif Strand
Are you worried about how many job losses can occur before our economy truly crashes? Are you confused about how difficult it is to find a job, while you watch your savings dwindle to nothing and your debt get higher and higher? If you are an employer with job openings, are you perplexed about how difficult it is to find an employee when unemployment is so high?
You aren’t the Lone Ranger.
The NM Governor’s Economic Summit has drawn to a close. If nothing else has come of this conference it is the understanding that the current economic crisis in this country is a multi-faceted thing, and that the only way to deal with it is by a team effort. “Fixing” things from the top down (government bailout) isn’t going to work unless the very foundation of economic development is shored up as well.
What is the foundation of a sustainable, thriving economy? It’s not simply profitable financial institutions, but a healthy, sustainable environment, a healthy, sustainable society and healthy urban and rural, local, regional, federal and world economy.
Everything is connected to everything – nothing we humans partake of exists in a vacuum, sufficient under itself. If you only fix one thing without fixing the other parts, your fix won’t work, but will rather just cause more problems. Real life is a balancing act – sustainability occurs when all parts are considered when changes are proposed. If you ignore the connected parts, those other parts will be damaged by the imbalance and then other parts will drag you down.
A real fix that will create a sustainable, thriving economy means looking to the human environment and the natural environment. We have a strong environmentalist force nowadays that has positioned itself as the moral guides for humanity, but this force has forgotten that humans are rightful and valid part of the planetary environment, that environmentalist planning must recognize and accommodate the human environment. Green hasn’t worked and will never work if we only look at humanity as a disease that should be excluded.
The team that will fix the economy is the team that is inclusive rather than exclusive. The human spirit is perhaps the most valuable resource for improving our planet that we have. Addressing today’s issues must be done from the perspective of raising human consciousness on the environmental, societal and economic levels. No planning that focuses solely on one area to the exclusion of any other area can provide a solution.
In upcoming posts, you will be provided with an opportunity to join the Rural Economic Development Team to create meaningful, sustainable economic development. Your comments, suggestions and support are welcome.
Economic Development: A Team Effort
By Lif Strand
Are you worried about how many job losses can occur before our economy truly crashes? Are you confused about how difficult it is to find a job, while you watch your savings dwindle to nothing and your debt get higher and higher? If you are an employer with job openings, are you perplexed about how difficult it is to find an employee when unemployment is so high?
You aren’t the Lone Ranger.
The NM Governor’s Economic Summit has drawn to a close. If nothing else has come of this conference it is the understanding that the current economic crisis in this country is a multi-faceted thing, and that the only way to deal with it is by a team effort. “Fixing” things from the top down (government bailout) isn’t going to work unless the very foundation of economic development is shored up as well.
What is the foundation of a sustainable, thriving economy? It’s not simply profitable financial institutions, but a healthy, sustainable environment, a healthy, sustainable society and healthy urban and rural, local, regional, federal and world economy.
Everything is connected to everything – nothing we humans partake of exists in a vacuum, sufficient under itself. If you only fix one thing without fixing the other parts, your fix won’t work, but will rather just cause more problems. Real life is a balancing act – sustainability occurs when all parts are considered when changes are proposed. If you ignore the connected parts, those other parts will be damaged by the imbalance and then other parts will drag you down.
A real fix that will create a sustainable, thriving economy means looking to the human environment and the natural environment. We have a strong environmentalist force nowadays that has positioned itself as the moral guides for humanity, but this force has forgotten that humans are rightful and valid part of the planetary environment, that environmentalist planning must recognize and accommodate the human environment. Green hasn’t worked and will never work if we only look at humanity as a disease that should be excluded.
The team that will fix the economy is the team that is inclusive rather than exclusive. The human spirit is perhaps the most valuable resource for improving our planet that we have. Addressing today’s issues must be done from the perspective of raising human consciousness on the environmental, societal and economic levels. No planning that focuses solely on one area to the exclusion of any other area can provide a solution.
In upcoming posts, you will be provided with an opportunity to join the Rural Economic Development Team to create meaningful, sustainable economic development. Your comments, suggestions and support are welcome.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Welcome to Rural Economic Development Today
REDT post 001
by Lif Strand
Rural Economic Development Today
Bailouts, foreclosures, stock market losses, job insecurity, financial uncertainty: Signs of our economic times. Who isn't worried about our economic future as individuals, families and a nation?
Welcome to Rural Economic Development Today, a blog dedicated to the specific needs of rural economies.
My name is Lif Strand, and I'm a Local Economic Developer in Catron County, New Mexico. As I write this, I’m sitting in an economic conference, listening to doom and gloom about the economic situation today. (I should be paying full attention, but the sound system is pretty bad).
People are afraid, and that’s understandable. Elections are coming up and no one knows what changes the new administration will bring about; no one knows if those changes will make things better or worse for each of us, particularly those of us who live in rural America. No one knows if stock market fluctuations will wipe out our investments or shore them up; no one knows if the government’s bailout plans will wipe out our economy or save us.
Rural Americans are often the step-children of economic development planning on the federal and state level. Lip service is given to us, but generally funds go to developed areas and we are left with the trickle-down, which isn’t much benefit at all.
The sad fact is that rural America is the very foundation of our country’s economy (and to an extent that of the world). Rural America feeds everyone, supplies the natural resources that manufacturing is based on. The focus of all economic development, particularly right now when things are so shaky, should be to stabilize the foundation, to assess what is wrong and fix it – making sure that the fix is not just for rural economic development today but for tomorrow and the next decade and beyond.
This blog is here to examine the issues of rural economic development and, collaboratively – with your help – to identify those issues and look for solutions that will work for rural economic development. Your feedback is welcome.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
