New CDC director hopes to promote county?s agricultural strengths, existing businesses and better co
?You are back in business again,? said District 1 Presque Isle County Commissioner Bob Schell, following the board?s 4-1 vote last Friday to approve the hiring of Bill Valentine as the new director of the County Development Commission. Due to his strong background in business development, the CDC board recommended Valentine as the new director at its regular December meeting. Valentine, even with a slowing Michigan economy, wants to highlight the county?s strong points and promote small businesses.
?We are looking for projects that are going to speak to our own strengths,? said Valentine after the meeting. ?There is a lot of development opportunities even in a tight economy, such as we are living in now.? Newly-appointed CDC chairman Clarkson Most, who attended last Friday?s meeting, said there were a few more ?little things? to finalize, such as a background check, but a meeting of the CDC executive committee will cross the ?T?s? and dot the final ?I?s.?
SOME OF VALENTINE?S qualifications include the ability to write proposals and seek grants, along with finding funding from the private sector. ?I know how to run a project and then get paid, and get onto the next thing. That?s what we are looking for,? said Valentine. He had been working as a staff writer/photographer for Presque Isle Newspapers for the last year and a half. Prior to that, he ran a software business for more than a dozen years in the Middle East.
?We developed a flagship product for property management, and most of the large scale properties in the capitol of Saudia Arabia still run our software,? he said. ?A lot of that work was done by myself?designing the software, and then we hired a lot of people in the region to manage those projects.? He attended last week?s visioning meeting in Rogers City and talked about coordinating better communication between various governmental entities, as well as other organizations and businesses. “We?re not a very large county and our resources are limited. The more we can work together, I think it will benefit everyone,? said Valentine.
?ONE OF OUR strengths is agricultural. We would like to see that expanded. There was mention at today?s meeting about biomass fuels. That is a big initiative in the state. Right now in Michigan we only have one plant for bio-energy and they are now talking about increasing that to five. We would like to see one of those located in our area.? This is an initiative that would use agricultural material to produce fuel for energy. ?It?s agricultural-based, and we are an agricultural county. In 1995 we had more than 50,000 acres of cropland under till. We are down below almost 40,000 acres. We would like to see that built up again,? said Valentine. ?That?s an important area. At the same time, we want to do what we can to encourage small businesses to improve and expand their own services. Our economy is based largely on small businesses. Most people do work for small businesses and we want to help them grow and help them continue to do their work.?
The contract with the terms of Valentine?s employment agreement were prepared and presented to the county commissioners by prosecutor Don McLennan. Valentine will be an independent contractor and receive an annual salary of $32,000. The agreement will remain in place unless cancelled by either party at which time a 30-day notice would be required by either side.
BOARD CHAIRMAN Allan Bruder was the lone dissenting vote, saying he wasn?t against the recommendation of the CDC board, or its executive committee, but against an increase to their budget. ?We?ve asked everybody else to hold their budget in line, and they?ve increased their budget by $8,000 over the next two years. I can?t, in good conscience, give the $8,000,? said Bruder. Along with approving the contact of the new director, board members also discussed the possibility of reducing the size of the CDC board. The prosecutor provided a
Most, who has served on the CDC for six years, says the reduction in the number of board members has been discussed by the CDC board. ?I don?t believe that there?s anyone on our board that is in favor of reducing it,? said Most. ?Obviously, we?re appointed by the county commissioners, so whatever they decide is going to have to be lived with.?
?When we have a chance to comment, we will be commenting on the reasons why we feel it shouldn?t be reduced.? In Most?s six years there have been two occasions there wasn?t a quorum of seven or more members to conduct a meeting. They have been running an average of 11 members, he said.