The Winnebago EDA met on Wednesday, Feb. 4 to discuss potential projects for the South Central Service Cooperative (SCSC) representatives to tackle over the next year.

SCSC representatives Mike Humpal and James Gromberg, who were both present at the meeting, were asked for their opinion on the current state of Winnebago and what changes they thought should be prioritized when renovating the city.

“We both toured the city earlier today, and a lot of the things we noticed are very common problems among lots of small towns across the state – affordable housing, older buildings that need demolition, that sort of thing,” Humpal shared. “But I think the better question is, what do you want us to help with?”

“Winnebago has a lot of potential, but our goal is to figure out what to do with that potential,” Gromberg added. “This is the stage where we would talk to local businesses and find out what some of their needs and wants are, and to figure out what kinds of resources are already available within the community to help them reach those goals. We’re trying to learn what solutions might work for someone, how to make those solutions work, and the steps it will take us to get there.”

Humpal went on to ask whether the EDA had any idea in mind for the types of projects it wanted to tackle, and if there were any already in progress.

“We’ve already got one of the hearts for our Winnebago Hearts project up in front of the Municipal Center, and there are plans for more in other locations around town,” mayor Jean Anderson replied. “We also had an idea to turn one of our empty lots into a park with several of those hearts in it.”

“That’s a good idea, and I think you should continue to pursue that. It’s good to have areas like this to draw people into town,” Humpal shared. “However, we also want to find these kinds of opportunities for outside businesses to come to town and bring more business and people into the community. I think a good start for this would be creating a property inventory, figuring out what properties already exist and what amenities they already have and what they might need if they want to be developed.”

Gromberg agreed with his colleague’s proposition, and suggested a framework that the EDA could use going forward to plan and track the success of their projects.

“We have a four-step process that we like to use for projects like this,” Gromberg explained. “First, we take inventory and see what resources we already have that we can work with. Second we do some strategic planning, and see what the needs of the community are and what niches we can help fill. Third, we prioritize; not only between wants and needs, but also which projects are the most attainable. Fourth, we figure out a metric by which we can judge success, so that when we come back next year we can tell the community, this is what we’ve accomplished, and this is what we still have left to do.”

“We’ve had a lot of discussions about ideas and planning for our city already,” Anderson shared. “Now is the time for us to take action. Taking inventory is a good first step, so we can see what all we have to work with and where we can go from there.”

Other business discussed at the EDA meeting included:

• CEDA representative Mike Schmidt presented the EDA with updates on the outstanding loans. Flip N’ Shake is continuing to make monthly loan payments, while Shane Roerig has not made a single loan payment for either Roerig Hardware or Master Bait and Tackle.