At last night’s meeting, the Northfield City Council voted 7-0 to approve the recommendation of the Economic Development Authority to fund the Northfield Downtown Development Corporation.

We requested matching funding for 2005 and 2006 from the EDA at their June 9th meeting. Since we were off-cycle for 2005 and they haven’t received a budget for 2006, they were comfortable only with granting us a portion of our 2005 request. This was completely understandable. What pleased us was the acknowledgement that the work that the NDDC is doing is vital to economic development efforts in the downtown district.

Equally satisfying is the support of the City Council for our work. We’re pleased that they have confidence in our ability to achieve results.

We will be using the $15,000 from the EDA for the following five programs:

1) Coordinated marketing on behalf of downtown Northfield
2) Communication with and on behalf of downtown constituencies
3) Recruitment of new businesses/retention of existing businesses
4) Solutions to logistical problems common to the district
5) Benchmarking of downtown economic and demographic data

Thanks need to be given not only to the EDA and the City Council, but also to our Board of Directors, our donors, and the volunteer community advisors that make up our committees and contribute some great ideas.