Greetings All!

Pictured left to right: Salin Geevarghese, Acting Director of the HUD Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities; Naomi Friedman, ND's Grant Technical Representative from HUD; Shirley Brentrup, Vision West ND Project Director; Vicky Steiner, Executive Director of the ND Association of Oil & Gas Producing Counties; and Deb Nelson, DLN Consulting and Program Manager for Vision West.

About 350 grantees and staff attended the three day HUD 2013 Sustainable Communities Grantee Convening last week at the U.S. Dept. of Transportation in Washington, D.C. In addition to speakers like U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan and Dr. Manuel Pastor, who spoke as keynote presenters during the Grantee Convening, grantees also met with HUD officials and gave updates on how their regional plans were developing. Vision West ND representatives who attended the meeting included Shirley Brentrup, Vicky Steiner, and Deb Nelson. For more information on the HUD Grantee Convening, please check out this letter from Secretary Donovan.

Also taking place last week was a webinar focused on providing information on a potential regional trust fund. Dr. Dick Gardner presented to webinar attendees on how similar funds have worked in places like Norway and Minnesota. Gardner talked about how such a regional trust could act as an "insurance policy" to manage the regions risk of developing its various infrastructure pieces so rapidly. The regional trust fund, Gardner said, could be used by local western ND governments to finance the many development projects needed in the region to accommodate a growing population base for the long term. "Cost are lumpy", he said, in reference to the locally incurred expenses of infrastructure growth and enhancement. The costs to add development up to existing capacity are often not significant. However, when expansion of that capacity is needed, as is the case throughout western North Dakota, the costs can be quite high.

Much of the webinar described ways that a Western North Dakota Regional Legacy Trust might be established and govern itself. The ideas that were presented were not definitive, but offered as a starting point for discussion. Gardner referenced a draft white paper that was made available at the November Vision West ND Federal Partners Roundtable in Dickinson. That white paper provides details for policy consideration on the recommendation to develop a regional trust fund for western ND counties and is available by clicking this link.

The webinar closed with discussion on how North Dakota might fund such a regional legacy trust and how those funds could flow through the trust to the various stakeholders to address strategic purposes for sustaining the region. You may  view the webinar presented by Gardner by clicking the link or the webinar title picture above. Bryan Horwath with the Dickinson Press also wrote a story on the webinar and Dr. Gardner's recommendations for a regional trust fund. You can view that coverage here.