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558 N. Main St.,
Prineville, OR 97754
Phone: 541.447.6205 |
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| Keep Economic Summit's momentum going |
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 | | Editorial cartoon by Ron Raasch | | The momentum of Economic Summit shouldn't be lost. |
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Keep Economic Summit's momentum going
When Prineville Mayor Steve Uffelman called for an economic summit last year it was not know what form the process would take or what exactly was to be accomplished. What was known was that Prineville had a major economic problem with jobs quickly slipping away and local mills closing. There was a need for new job creation, and quickly.
Uffelman obtained a grant from the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department to convene the economic summit to produce a strategic plan for coordinated community and economic development action. A steering committee was formed and Rural Development Initiatives, Inc. (RDI) was retained to facilitate the process.
The summit finally took place over two half days last week, with more than 50 community leaders and representatives from regional support agencies in attendance.
Looking around the room at the summit it was impressive to see the diverse mix of community leaders spending their time in an effort to help this community. They were strong leaders and innovative individuals from the city, county, chamber of commerce, financial institutions and numerous local businesses. Many of the regional acronym agencies (COIC, OED, CORHA and several others) were also here to help. Even Jeff Robberson, (the owner of Robberson Ford which is about to open a store in Prineville) was present both days.
The summit followed the goals and strategies of Prineville's recently established Vision 2010 plan and broke the participants into four groups dealing with business development, infrastructure, workforce and quality of life. While the ultimate goal of the summit was to develop more business for our community, the other elements are all essential for the ultimate success of the effort.
After two intense sessions each group created action plans designed to help Prineville start to rebuild its economic base, while improving the community facilities, communication infrastructure, transportation and quality of our workforce in the process. The plans identified people or agencies to work on each task, a timeline, the cost, a party responsible for tracking progress and a success indicator.
This is not the first time this community has done such extensive planning. Anyone who's been involved over the past 10, 20 or 30 years is likely to have several 'strategic plans' gathering dust in a bookcase or buried in some box of old books.
While Prineville has had its share of plans that have never come to fruition, there have been several recent successes. For example all the goals of the Vision 2000 have been completed, the Our Town branding project is nearly complete along with several other projects.
With the momentum of recent successes, a determined community and a new workable plan there should be a good chance for Prineville to continue moving forward toward creating new jobs and rebuilding our economy. Before the elements of that plan have a chance to gather dust its important that the groups and individuals push act quickly to meet and beat the established time tables and the identified goals.
We encourage the participants of the economic summit to not let this plan end up in your bookcases. Keep it close at hand on your desktops and work on it daily. Prineville deserves no less.
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