EDA Board Member Jim Hall was not at the December meeting of the Cook County – Grand Marais Economic Development Authority (EDA) because he had jury duty. Because the EDA board knew he would not be able to attend that meeting, they surprised him by honoring him at his last official meeting in November. EDA Chair Mike Littfin presented Hall with a plaque recognizing Hall’s 18 years of service to the EDA. Hall noted that he had served on the board with all of the EDA’s directors, and listed those he could remember starting with the first director, Bethany Fountain. She was followed by Mary Junnila, Karen Blackburn, Alan Christiansen, John Kremer and current Director Matt Geretschlaeger. Hall said he had enjoyed his time serving on the EDA board.
With a focus on hiring a local website designer, the Cook County-Grand Marais Economic Development Authority (EDA) has once again put feelers throughout the local community trying to entice someone with the right skills to offer a proposal to make a website for the agency.
Under the EDA’s guidelines, a developer must also be able to maintain, update, and host the new stand-alone site.
Two months ago the EDA looked at a proposal from Golden Shovel, a designer that focuses on creating websites for entities like the EDA that are trying to attract new businesses. And while the board found the proposal interesting, Golden Shovel’s services came with the hefty price tag of $12,000. Too high for most of the board members who thought it would be better anyway to hire someone local if it was at all possible.
This is not the first effort by the EDA to hire local help in this matter. A few months ago the EDA put two small ads in the newspaper’s legal section looking for a designer but never received any interest. This time they are putting more effort into the search.
According to Jim Boyd, a member of the Cook County Broadband Commission, who is helping the EDA, “The goals of the website are to provide a greater visibility to EDA activities, to serve as an easily accessible public repository for official EDA records, to facilitate interaction between the EDA board and the public, to aid in EDA marketing, especially of the Cedar Grove Business Park, and to advance generally the EDA mission.”
According to the EDA’s mission statement, the goal of the EDA is to “diversify the economy and create year-round, livable wage employment for Cook County through the preservation and expansion of existing businesses and development of new businesses that is environmentally responsible, respects multiple use and enhances the unique attractiveness of our area.”
One of the great hopes is that an innovative website will help attract new interest in the Cedar Grove Business Park developed by the EDA a number of years ago. So far, three businesses and one church are located in the approximately 60-acre business park.
Guidelines for proposals can be found at www.co.cook.mn.us. Deadline for submission of proposals is noon on December 30, 2011. All proposals should be submitted to the Cook County/Grand Marais EDA, Grand Marais City Hall, 15 North Broadway, P.O. Box 600, Grand Marais, Mn 55604.
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