Welcome to MEDA Online News

Welcome to MEDA Online News. The purpose of this webpage is to serve as a communication link within the MEDA membership. It is to be a member-to-member site to inform MEDA Members as to news within our organization. Let’s keep it simple: MEDA will send you an email to let you know when articles have been updated. If you would like to submit an article, an idea, a comment—please do. Let’s keep in touch and keep our network strong. Previous editions: January 2006; February 2006;    March 2006;   April 2006;
May 2006;   June 2006;  July 2006; August 2006; September 2006; October 2006; November 2006; December 2006; January 2007; February 2007; March 2007; April 2007;

APRIL 2007


CRDC Update: Do you remember hearing a lot about Resource Team Assessments in the past? To date, 32 assessments have taken place with many of the communities involved obtaining the goals they set for themselves. If you are new to Montana Resource Team Assessments, they are a community based planning and assessment process involving interviewing a large number of people in the community, recording their suggestions and having a team of experts write-up implementation plans for community use. The team of experts suggests ways of accomplishing the goals of the community. To schedule a Resource Team in your area, your Certified Regional Development Corporation serving as the regional economic development authority, must be on board and a participant in the process. Contact Gloria for more information.

MEDA Membership Update: Thanks to each of you that have sent in your 2007 MEDA dues. For those of you not yet paid, you can pay your MEDA dues online or via check. New members in March include: Jessica Allred, Missoula Area Economic Development; Sharon Dailey, PTAC, Great Falls Development Authority; David Foster, Community Development, City of Kalispell; Lea McGiboney, Loan Officer, Great Falls Development Authority; Kim Thiel-Schaaf, Grantwriter, Great Falls Development Authority. Welcome!  
Print the MEDA Membership Directory.     

Grant and Funding Opportunities:
Montana USDA/Rural Development is accepting applications for all programs. For descriptions of the programs and application criteria please visit the website at www.rurdev.usda.gov/mt/rbs/rbs.htm

CDBG Public Facilities Grant Application Guidelines are now on the CDBG Website: http://comdev.mt.gov/CDD_CDBG_PF.asp

The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently published HUD's Fiscal Year 2007 "SuperNOFA," a notice that makes available approximately $2.4 billion in funding through 38 individual grant programs. Information is available in HUD's step-by-step registration guide.


Working Groups...Are Working!: During the WEDA/MEDA/EDA Spring conference (see details below) a segment of the agenda is to include an update on MEDA's working groups. If you are interested in presenting an update, please contact Gloria. The MEDA Scholarship, Transportation, BEAR, and Legislative Committee/Working Groups were active in March. The Transportation Working Group is planning its annual get-together with transportation officials on May 18th. View the agenda at http://www.medamembers.org/transportation.html. The MEDA Legislative Committee continues to meet via conference call every Wednesday morning at 7:00am to discuss legislative bills and issues. The dedication of this committee has been outstanding throughout the entire session. The Scholarship Committee received and reviewed two applications for the spring scholarship competition and recommended awards to the MEDA Board. The MEDA Board met via conference call and awarded scholarships to Andy Zdinak of Butte Local Development and Leslie Messer of Richland Economic Development. Congratulations! Please see the MEDA BEAR monthly report at http://www.medamembers.org/bear.html. The training held in Billings on March 1st was a great success; see the photos in the report.

Opportunities For You: Interested in sharpening your professional skills as an economic and community development practitioner? Looking for new tools to place in your economic development tool box? Check these out.
    Had to miss out on the Montana Means Business web portal training? Visit the following ftp site and download the powerpoint file: ftp://www.gcs-research.net/
    Right-click and Login As…Username: mmb; Password: mmbiz Note: You may need to disable passive ftp through your Internet Explorer options.

Montana BEAR Report: Great things are happening in the Montana BEAR Program. Review the March 2007 report (it even has photos) and learn of progress in initiating this program across the state. According to data entered into the ExecutivePulse software, nine counties were active this past month: Cascade, Mineral, Missoula, Ravalli, Yellowstone, Silver Bow, Flathead, Lake and Fergus.

What the Numbers Say: Montana Department of Commerce

Looking for some elbow room?
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released 2006 population estimates for counties. Below is a table showing the top five most densely populated counties in Montana as well as the counties with the lowest population density.Legislative District Census Profiles

For more detailed county population statistics, including a thematic map of population density by county, visit CEIC's web site at http://ceic.mt.gov/EstimatesCntyPop.asp.      For more information, contact CEIC staff at 841-2740 or sockert@mt.gov.


My Turn: This-n-That from the MEDA Office
In case you haven't heard, MEDA is forming a new working group to become more informed and active in Housing issues facing the state. The response from MEDA and non-MEDA members has been terrific. If you are interested, contact Gloria. You may recall that MEDA Working Groups were formed during our spring conference in 2006. Now that a year has gone by, we need to re-evaluate and revisit the status of our current working groups. Time will be set aside during the MEDA Annual Meeting portion of the WEDA/MEDA/EDA conference to do this.

Be sure to register for the WEDA/MEDA/EDA conference May 9 - 11th to be held in Cody, Wyoming. Also, if you would like to have a booth or display table to showcase your organization, just let me know. It is going to be worth the trip!

A Success Story....Do you have a story to share? Download the report template and send to MEDA.



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