Latest Business News from New Rockford, ND

NRABC seeks Executive Director

If you are a natural leader and a great communicator, consider a career with New Rockford and Eddy County's economic development corporation.

The New Rockford Area Betterment Corporation (NRABC) Executive Director will develop plan, direct and coordinate programs and services that promote rural economic and community development in the service area by working closely with businesses, community leaders, and other stakeholders to improve the area’s economy and quality of life. The primary objectives of the Executive Director are as follows:

1) To help establish new business ventures within the New Rockford geographic service area.

2) To encourage the retention and expansion of existing businesses.

3) To build alliances and foster good working relationships between the City of New Rockford and surrounding communities and trade show area, as well as the NRABC and the public.

4) To leverage local resources with private and public funds at the local, state and federal level in order to increase economic and community development activity.

5) To help provide feasibility, analysis, market analysis, business planning and financial packaging for new or expanding business ventures.

6) To serve as an advocate for new or expanding business ventures.

7) To keep the community informed of NRABC activities.

For details, including the job description and application instructions, click here.

Library Seeks Donations for e-book Lending Services

The New Rockford Public Library is seeking help with funding to start a new service called Overdrive Library2Go. This service would allow people to download e-books to e-readers such as Nook & Kindle and audiobooks to your iPod. You will be able to download these items from the library’s new website right to your computer and transfer them onto your device from any computer with internet access. The books are checked out just like a library book for 14 days at which time they will no longer be able to be opened.

The cost to become part of the North Dakota Consortium for Libraries is $1,500 and will help the library gain access to over 6,000 digital titles. As owners of e-readers know e-books range in price from $9-$13 and are rarely on sale, so this would be a way of saving our patrons’ money when they can get them from the library.

Librarian Susie Sharp stated that “We as a library must keep up with our patrons' needs and up and coming technology to stay vital in our community.” The Library Board would love to be able to offer this service to our library patrons and reminds the community that the money that the library gets from the City only covers the cost of running the library, salary, heating, lights and maintenance; all money for books and supplies comes from the generosity of our community.

If you would like to see this service at our library, please send donations to: The New Rockford Public Library, 10 8th St. North, New Rockford ,ND 58356, or stop in and see us if you have any questions about what this service would mean for you.

Strong Towns Presentation Brings Big Ideas

January 16th, 2012 – More than thirty community and business leaders from New Rockford, Sheyenne, Tolna, and surrounding areas attended a community planning presentation and dinner at the New Rockford Eagles Club on Jan 11th.

The speaker for the presentation on sustainable city planning was Charles Marohn, Jr. PE AICP, Executive Director of Strong Towns, a non-profit, non-partisan city planning advocacy organization based in St. Paul, MN. From the organization’s website, “The mission of Strong Towns is to support a model for growth that allows America's towns to become financially strong and resilient.”

The presentation, part of Strong Towns’ Curbside Chat program, covered many topics relating to former and future community development patterns. Using financial data and research from non-partisan organizations to show causes and impacts of the current economic crisis, the presentation leads the audience through the history of the growth and decline of our towns in pre- and post-WWII America.

Citing specific case studies to demonstrate financial and economic principles, the presentation illustrated the way current growth patterns trade long-term maintenance obligations for short-term gains in tax revenue, and how in many cases the investment will not lead to a positive return for the public, rather leading to deeper and deeper maintenance debt as infrastructure ages.

Another core idea is the marked contrast between historic building patterns with densely grouped buildings - such as New Rockford’s traditional downtown business grid - and modern, widely-spaced commercial and residential areas in terms of tax base, job creation, financial stability, and economic resiliency.

Quoted from Marohn’s presentation, “Our ancestors weren’t stupid. They knew that when they built something, it had to retain and create as much value as possible. That’s what we see in the historic development pattern, for thousands of years, until WWII and the ‘suburban experiment’ in the United States.”

New Rockford Area Betterment Corporation Sets Three-Year Goals

February 13th, 2012 – The New Rockford Area Betterment Corporation, the non-profit organization working with the City of New Rockford for economic development, has announced its three-year goals and strategies for community growth. The three primary focuses of the organization in 2012-2014 will be in the sectors of housing, business and job growth, and tourism.

In housing, the goal is to “facilitate projects and programs that directly result in the (construction) of at least 20 new housing units in the county during the next three years.” Plans include evaluating options for the development of small acreages, providing new incentives to those who purchase city-owned lots and build single-family homes, and seeking developers to build multi-family housing units to address the current housing shortage.

For business and job growth, the NRABC aims to “create at least 25 new jobs through expansion of existing businesses and another 20 jobs from new business development in the next three years.” The NRABC plans to recruit primary sector companies and professional service firms, and encourage specialty healthcare providers to set up satellite offices in New Rockford. Staff will work equally as hard to assist local firms with expansion plans.

Local shopping blog recently launched

November 15th, 2011 – A major trend in retail and city life has found its way to New Rockford with the launch of http://shopnewrockford.blog.com. A free online publication, written by Jessica Dillon of the New Rockford Area Betterment Corporation, this site is a collection of short articles, updated weekly, about the how and why of shopping locally. Gift ideas, special deals and coupons, recipes and how-to’s, holiday checklists, and much more will be featured, all revolving around items available from local merchants.

Dillon says that the reason behind the blog is simple. “Shopping locally is the lifeblood of any small town. People look at the prices here and compare them to big-box retailers and think it’s too expensive to shop locally. First of all, the cost of driving to a bigger city and back to shop more than eliminates any ‘savings’ you get by your mayonnaise being $1 cheaper. But more importantly, what will happen to New Rockford in a few years if our stores close? Where will we go for a gallon of milk or a box of band-aids or a garden hose? Where will our residents work? Who will re-invest in our community? Our businesses here need our support, and we need our businesses.”

Blogs – short for “weblogs” – started out in the late 90s as online journals, but have become a major source of information and news on every topic imaginable, written by experts and regular people the world over. Blog posts from shopnewrockford will also be featured on Facebook and linked to the city website ("Local Shopping Blog" on the side navigation bar).

Questions, comments, and suggestions for future posts are welcome from readers on the site. Local businesses pay nothing and need do nothing to be included in the reviews, so all opinions and suggestions are unsolicited and the sole responsibility of the author.