The Greene County Development Corporation met yesterday for its regular monthly session.
GCDC decided to table its decision about the relocation package for new employees looking to move to the County until next month due to all members not having a chance to look over the new proposal.
Mike Mumma reported that the Grow Greene County Gaming Corporation officially received its non-profit status by the Internal Revenue Service and that concrete footings are expected to be poured by next week for Wild Rose Jefferson.
Lisa Jaskey gave an update about the County’s housing committee. She said that a sub-committee has been formed to redo a housing study to determine what areas the group needs to concentrate its efforts on to improve housing to cater to people’s needs with the over 1,000 jobs anticipated to come to the community in the next few years.
Economic Development Director Ken Paxton gave his monthly update to GCDC. He reminded everyone about August 18th’s town hall meeting at 6pm at the Greene County Community Center to discuss housing, daycare needs, new job opportunities and other incentives to get people informed about the progressive changes in the County. He also mentioned August 19th as the third meeting for the County-wide marketing plan to establish their key messages that they want to target their specific segment of people.
He reviewed his site selector trip from Minneapolis last week and how having a casino now puts them in the driver seat for better possibilities of national companies wanting to locate their businesses in the area. He will also travel to Chicago next month and to Omaha in October for other site selector meetings. Paxton told GCDC that he will be adding a “business opportunity” tab to their website to help fill store fronts on the downtown square.
Chamber Director Chris Henning made various updates on several different projects. She mentioned that there are several free copies available of the new business and tourism guide along with other information about each town on the Chamber’s website. She talked about the outside of the welcome center is now complete and they are starting to look over plans for the interior of the building on the southeast corner of the square. She ended her report by talking about the Hot August Night event on Thursday. There will also be a free movie at the Sierra Community Theatre at 8:15pm with “Grease”.
Midwest Partnership Executive Director Chad Schreck also gave his monthly status update. He mentioned the employer educator summit in Carroll on September 17th to give high school students the opportunity to see all the employment opportunities waiting for them to stay locally for jobs. He also talked about Scranton Manufacturing getting its $1 million USDA loan passed through for their expansion project.
Greene County ISU Extension Coordinator Michael Cooley said that they hired a new family financial educator with free services available and mentioned to call their office at 386-2138 for more information.