County meets development director

Union County Board of Supervisors met Monday with Union County Development Association Director Mindy Stalker about a funding request for the entity as part of the county’s fiscal year 2024 budget.

Stalker requested $20,000, which has been done in past years. Supervisors did not take any action.

Last month, Stalker was named director after having served as interim since May. Stalker informed the supervisors of the organization’s activities and projects. She reviewed UCDA’s first year, 2022, of its three-year plan. Economic development’s emphasis is on housing development, workforce recruitment, maintaining business and creative placemaking.

For housing, the four townhomes on West Adams are nearing completion. The townhomes were backed by the city of Creston, UCDA and Premier Construction to add housing to Creston. Stalker said a similar, additional housing complex is expected in the future.

Stalker said UCDA is supportive of upper story housing in Creston’s Uptown area and will assist where needed with property owners and Southern Iowa Council of Governments for grants. She added it’s common to receive three to five phone calls month from people interested in about upper-story living.

Workforce recruitment has taken a different approach according to information from Stalker. UCDA is interested in working with Creston and East Union school districts to provide them information about area businesses and careers. Creston has an iJAG chapter which builds career and academic interest with participating students.

Stalker said maintaining business and creative placemaking is shown by having scheduled discussions about continuing existing businesses in the future.

Supervisor Rick Friday asked about county wide representation on the UCDA board. Stalker said attempts are made to have people represent a region of the county, if someone for each town is not able.

In other supervisor news...

Supervisors met with representatives from Holmes Murphy about their services related to employee health insurance. The two said Holmes Murphy does have experience working with government entities.

Andrea Hoyt was approved to the county compensation board to represent treasurer Kelly Busch. Hoyt replaces Leslie Wurster whose four-year term expired.