I want to urge In Box readers first to look through the plan and then to chime in on one question:\u00a0 Does it live up to that very large, very ambitious word?<\/p>\n
Is this a menu of visions and projects that will transform the seven-county North Country in positive ways?\u00a0 That’s the measuring rod state officials will use when deciding which regional plan will receive a bonus allotment of $40 million.<\/p>\n
There are things in here that I find very interesting, including a sizable loan fund for new tourism start-ups, and some micro-enterprise efforts that include a mobile poultry processing plant.<\/p>\n
The biggest single item that the Council wants state officials to fund is the refurbishment of the industrial railroad line to the Newton Falls paper mill in southern St. Lawrence County — to the tune of nearly $10 million.<\/p>\n
We will energize our micropolitan cities, building on growth in the aerospace, transit equipment, defense, biotech, and manufacturing industries.\u00a0 Attract and nurture entrepreneurial pioneers to cultivate innovative clusters in our rural communities.<\/p>\n
Mobilize the creativity and capacity of the graduates of our outstanding places of higher education.\u00a0 Catalyze the highest per capita rate of small business start-ups in the state. Elevate global recognition of the region as one of the special places on the planet to visit, live, work and study. Activate tourism as a driver to diversify our economies. Propagate an agricultural revolution as we help feed the region and the world.\u00a0 Create the greenest energy economy in the state.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I don’t think I’m betraying a bias when I say that this all sounds pretty great.<\/p>\n
The question is whether this is a roadmap that might get us there?\u00a0 What’s your first blush opinion?\u00a0 Good ideas in here?\u00a0 Bad ideas?<\/p>\n
And how about the process?\u00a0 Was it exciting to see this conversation generated locally, rather than focused in Albany?\u00a0 Was your voice heard?\u00a0 As always, your comments welcome below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first word in the new North Country Regional Economic Development plan — the banner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[10,6592],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5079,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5078\/revisions\/5079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}