Minutes

Alliance of Champion Communities Meeting

Mar 21, 2007

Conference Call Meeting

1-888-296-6500
     Guest code: 526748

 10am-12am

 

 

Call to Order

The meeting was called to order by Marcel Fortin

                       

Members Present

Jerry Edens, Bob Johnson, Steve Reynolds, Dvon Duncan and Marcel Fortin

Guests Present          

 

Partners Present

 

Approval of Minutes

Motion: Jerry Edens  Second: Steve Reynolds  All vote Yes.

Correspondence

 

 

Unfinished Business

 

1.      “ WV. Distressed Communities Broadband Assessment Project” (BAP)

Project completed and reports sent to Benedum and providers.

Marcel stated that the project was complete, reports sent and success of the project has led to the Alliance being recognized for technology expertise and their ability to meet goals/objectives of projects as proposed.

2. Appointments of Directors/ Election of Officers

Election of officers set for March 21st meeting. Nominations and appointments for directors to be requested for the Mar. 21st meeting. Terms to begin July 2007. All interested parties need to contact Marcel prior to the March meeting to be added to the list of potential candidates. Candidates that have requested consideration are: Jerry Edens for Treasurer, Connie Lupardus for Secretary and Marcel Fortin for President. If any one else is interested in any of these positions or the Vice President slot let Marcel know as soon as possible.

Marcel presented the slate of those interested in the officer positions. Marcel Fortin – President, Robert Johnson – Vice President, Connie Lupardus – Secretary, and Jerry Edens – Treasurer. Motion by Robert Johnson  to accept the nominations of the interested members, Second: Jerry Edens -All vote Yes. Nominations closed. Motion to elect members to office of interest by Jerry Edens, Second: Robert Johnson - All vote Yes. Officers elected with terms to begin July 1, 2007. Marcel Fortin – President, Robert Johnson – Vice President, Connie Lupardus – Secretary and Jerry Edens – Treasurer.

             4.  AllianceWV.org Website

Continued input on how to best utilize the site and to increase hits to the site. Suggestions are welcome. A new section has been added for the Minigrant project. Details are being worked out and will be available as soon as they are available.

Steve discussed that when any queries were made for the Alliance or Champion Communities that

the site was appearing in the top locations on Yahoo, Google and MSN search engines and that the increased traffic to the site raises the site rankings. Discussion on the concern over the content appearing on the forum section of the website. Steve discussed the difficulty in keeping outsiders from abusing the open forum aspect of the site and recommended we shut down the forum until adequate safeguards could be put in place to assure the appropriateness of the content provided by forum participants. All agreed and Steve will remove the section immediately.

            Barbour County CDC is working on a regional website of surrounding counties to provide transportation information availability, since there is not any public transportation in the region. They are also working with businesses in Barbour and Nicholas counties to develop websites. There is a lot of interest in the Benedum funded project. Since Verizon deployed DSL in the area, their organization has been getting numerous calls for training on how to take advantage of the new services available.

             

5. Coal Connectivity Grant

Projects working with Coal companies are ongoing. Anyone interested in setting up meetings with coal operations in their communities to discuss how the Alliance can help in getting broadband to their remote sites, let me know. I would be very willing to make a presentation outlining what is happening.

            Marcel commented of the continued interest from the coal industry on meeting their communication needs for the safety of their employees. Technologies are being tested for communications in the mines that will require broadband for real time transmission to WV. Emergency Services in the event of an emergency or disaster.

            6. Benedum Minigrant Project

The Alliance has been awarded a $350,000 Community Technology Minigrant Grant for 2007. Application was made and work is in progress for the final details of the project. Details will be provided as soon as available. Meetings are in progress with the Community Connect Foundation and others to get the applications to the public. There has been great interest in this project and we want to assure that the intentions of the grant are explained in detail, so we don’t get requests for Computers, printers and software only. We are looking for out of the box technology solutions to solving communities needs.

            Marcel discussed that the project was still in the development stage and that meetings were being held to work out details of the project. Alliance members are encouraged to attend to provide input. Jerry Edens and Dvon Duncan expressed interest on attending

New Business

WV legislative report: see attached for all the technology related legislation the completed legislative action awaiting the governor’s approval. We have been instrumental in providing the leadership to move WV forward into the next century. See attached Senate Bill 748 which was passed and contains a non profit technical facilitator section. The language used came from our brochure and website and we are positioned to provide that role for broadband mapping and outreach.

            Marcel discussed the number of technology based legislative actions that took place this legislative session that was just completed. The Alliance has played a significant role in keeping technology in discussions at the Capitol. Legislators are getting messages from their constituents asking for broadband and expressing the need for their leadership in moving rural WV. into the global economy.

Reports: Community Reports

The reports presented last meeting showed the progress from the champions in attendance.

We need to hear from the others so we can share experiences and best practices.

 

Wyoming County –

Dvon Duncan introduced herself as the new executive director for RAIL  (Rural Applachian Improvement League) in Wyoming County. She is replacing Dewey Houek, who is retiring. She is retired from the Air Force and recently was the director for an Economic Dev. Authority in Tennessee. She was raised in Mullens, WV. and wanted to return home. Her background is in technology and looks forward to working with the Alliance to bring her successes in Tennessee to WV.    

Their organization is doing a brownfield assessment project in the Guyandotte Watershed area. Efforts are underway on housing/community/tourism/retiree attraction projects. 90% of the land in the area is owned bythe  railroad and out of state landowners. The lack of developable land makes economic efforts more difficult, but not impossible.

 

Nicholas County-

Robert Johnson discussed the Appalachian Forest Heritage Area (AFHA) projects.. AFHA Executive Director, Phyllis Baxter has been assisting Richwood and Webster County in developing half-day driving tours to promote heritage tourism. Nicholas county, as well as 17 other West Virginia and Maryland counties are part of the AFHA region.  The AFHA is seeking support letters from stakeholder communities and governmental entities.  Support letters may be mailed to

 

Phyllis Baxter

AFHA

P. O. Box 1206

Elkins, WV  26241-1206

 

Weblink: http://www.appalachianforest.us/index.htm

 

A new visitor center will be opening soon at Nicholas County Veterans Memorial Park, along US 19, just north of Summersville.  The center is a joint venture of Nicholas County Board of Parks & Recreation Commission, Nicholas County Golf Association, the Nicholas County Commission; and the Chambers of Commerce of Richwood and Summersville.

 

John Ash, from the US Dept of Labor is providing a session on Federal Labor Law compliance at the regular quarterly meeting of the Summersville Area West Virginia Employer Advisory Committee (WVEAC) on March 22, 2007, in Summersville at the OneStop center on Northside Drive.

 

Johnson also discussed the Retirement Times publication, which will feature a piece he wrote on Richwood housing in the next issue. He mentioned that Nicholas County became a Designated Retirement Community (DRC) two years ago, one of five DRCs in WV. Johnson explained the value of attracting the retirement community to an area.  The state weblink is http://www.retirewv.org/

 

The links to the above sites are to be put on the Alliance website. Fortin Note: USDA is providing E-commerce lessons throughout WV in a 3 year project. A project went to Senior Citizen centers to attract and capture older markets.  Thos who attended classes received free computers.  

Speaker:

Conference call meeting – no speaker

 

Next meeting:

April 18, 2007 Conference call meeting

 

 

Adjournment

 

Adjourned  11:30am

 

Respectfully submitted: Marcel J. Fortin

04/02/07