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LAKE CRYSTAL — City leaders are looking for residents to guide them in creating a detailed strategic economic development plan.

“It helps ensure you’re doing things that are supported by the community,” said City Administrator Taylor Gronau. “And it gives you a plan. When businesses and people are looking at Lake Crystal, it gives them a sense that the city has a plan and they can see where they can fit in.”

Region Nine Development Commission is assisting the city of 2,500 people with the plan. A public open house will be Wednesday to get input from residents and flyers have been sent out seeking comments.

“We’ve gotten a great response from the flyer already. We have 161 responses,” said Corree Stamschror of Region Nine.

She said they often help communities develop comprehensive plans, but the one Lake Crystal is seeking goes further. “This is unique. A strategic economic development plan is a step further than a comprehensive plan.”

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WASHINGTON – From May 18-25, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) and International Trade Administration (ITA), in coordination with the U.S. Department of State and the Organization of American States (OAS), will participate in the Eleventh Americas Competitiveness Exchange (ACE) on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Puerto Rico.

ACE has been recognized as a successful tool for bilateral and multilateral cooperation, furthering the ability of U.S. businesses to compete at home and abroad. Previous hosts have found ACE to be an important vehicle to advance commerce and trade between them and participating nations.

For ACE 11, nearly 50 high-level representatives from 22 countries will explore global and regional partnerships as well as economic development opportunities.

“ACE is an important tool in showcasing the incredibly innovative capacity of U.S. regions and their ability to forge global commercial relationships in support of U.S. companies,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development Dr. John Fleming. “We look forward to demonstrating how Puerto Rico’s emerging innovation economy can help drive new private investment to the Island to spur mutually-beneficial business deals and advance local resiliency efforts.”

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The Region Nine Development Commission met Wednesday afternoon to review MnDOT’s Area Transportation Improvement Program for fiscal years 2020 – 2023.

The $285 million program will bring much needed support to the roads, bridges, and infrastructure in the nine-county region. Public input is essential to ensuring taxpayer funds are invested wisely, so the community was invited to look over the draft and provide feedback.

“They’ll see things for Highway 14. They’ll see things in every single county. There are roads and bridges that are a priority, there’s trails that are priority and also as I said the safe Routes to school will be in there too. Transportation is more than just moving cars it’s about public health, it’s about our environment, it’s also about our economies, so all three of those things are really important to the people that live in this region,” Shawn Schloesser with Region Nine said.
 
Portions of the draft will be included in a state plan, which will go for approval before the Commissioner of Transportation.

–KEYC News 12