Certification through the Kansas Department of Commerce is currently in the sights of the Regional Development Association of East Central Kansas.
During the RDA Board of Directors meeting Friday, RDA President Kent Heerman presented an update on the organization’s efforts to be certified through the KDOC’s Certified Sites Program. According to Heerman, part of the process includes soil boring, which is currently underway at Industrial Park IV.
Heerman says certification through the program “gives assurance to a customer that you are at a certain level of readiness.” Additional work will include documenting utilities and updating the property’s environmental assessment. According to Heerman, KDHE has a grant program to fund work such as that which the RDA plans to seek.
Discussions on the status of the RDA’s certification are expected to continue in the coming months.
In other business, the board received an update from the RDA’s Organization and Structure committee. The presentation included a summary of future focuses and structure concepts for the organization.
Some of the areas focused on in the report included staffing, creating retirement opportunities, continuing aggressive outreach, internet access to rural areas and partnerships with local entities among numerous other items. Following the presentation, board member Jim Shepherd proposed breaking up some of those activities into individual “departments” and begin developing the ins and outs of how to accomplish each particular goal.
Shepherd’s suggestion gained favor with many other members of the board. Plans are to continue taking an in-depth look at that process during the board’s next monthly meeting in December.
At the beginning of their meeting Friday, the board took a moment of silence to honor long-time board member Rick Tidwell who sadly passed away last week after a battle with cancer. Tidwell served on the RDA board as the representative for Emporia Enterprises since 2017.
