lakeport >> The California Association for Economic Development (CALED) gave a Local Economic Opportunities Workshop in Lakeport as the city gets closer to approving their Economic Development Strategic Plan.
The Lakeport Economic Development Advisory Committee (LEDAC) has been working on the plan for two years and completed a draft to bring to the City Council for examination at the next meeting.
Moving forward, the city identified three different focuses for economic developments. City officials would like to promote and participate in regional economic development initiatives, expand and support business retention and attraction efforts and to strive to enhance the historic downtown lakefront areas.
Lakeport City Manager Margaret Silveira said economic development was one of the highest priorities for the community when a survey was distributed and is one of the set goals for the City Council.
“We thought this would be a good time to invite CALED to come here and do a presentation on what is economic development and also talk about what is being done locally,” Silveira said.
Although some of the economic development activities the city plans is clear to the public, a lot of planning is going on in the background. Often the public is unaware of the work involved leading up to a project, Silveira added.
During the workshop, topics brought up by participants included the need for affordable housing, more businesses that fit the community’s needs and more diversity in participation for economic development.
Kevin Ingram, the Lakeport Community Development Director who also contributed to putting together the plan, said what they have planned are not new ideas but old ones that they revamped and modernized.
“From a holistic standpoint we didn’t just copy and paste goals, we took a step back and said who are our real stake holders and our partners in doing this,” Ingram said. “There are already a lot of great groups in this town who are working towards the exact same thing.”
Only one percent of the city’s General Fund budget is used for economic development initiatives. But this represents an improvement over the past. Each year the city council has been directing more funding toward economic development.
Jeff Lucas the Executive Director of Lake County Economic Development Corporation (EDC) said he along with others have been helping businesses start up and continue growing in the county to help increase economic development.
“One thing that the EDC is really good at and what we have learned over the years is that you can have the technical capacity and all the other elements, but you have to have the financing to do it,” Lucas said.
He added that the EDC will continue to bring in funds and help businesses as the city and county look to grow as they go through the process of getting the plan approved.
