The County's Blue Ribbon Task Force officially ended today, and we began the process of implementing the County's new economic development strategy. The County is taking an important step to support a new approach to economic development in our region: economic development that is privately-led and publicly supported.
We set out the strategy in the recently produced Blue Ribbon Strategic Action Plan. You can download the report from the County's web site [1].
The County is moving ahead with all five initiatives outlined in the Action Plan.
Our consulting team will be focusing on implementing three initiatives: Cuyahoga Next Advisors, North Coast Clusters, and Cuyahoga Innovation Zones. You can download the presentation we prepared for today's meeting. Download [2].
The County has allocated $1.5 million to promote the implementation of these three initiatives.
The County's Invest in Children -- one of the most comprehensive initiatives for early child care in the country -- will be moving on a separate, but connected track. So will the regeneration initiative, New Start Partners and Cuyahoga Next Partners. (This initiative is tied to on-going discussions about a county wide redevelopment fund.)
Our next steps will focus on implementing the three very exciting initiatives ahead of us. Today, we requested participants to indicate their level of interest in the three initiatives. Using this guidance, we will assemble smaller teams to assist us in designing each of these three initiatives.
With Cuyahoga Next Advisors, we will establish a working advisory team that builds a new dynamic of collaboration in the county. With North Coast Clusters, we will be developing procedures for a fast "design/build" cycle for new clusters in the region. With innovation zones, we will be developing new approaches to attracting investment to innovative companies forming around our colleges, universities and research institutions.
Links:
[1] http://www.cuyahogacounty.us/bocc/blueribbon.htm
[2] http://www.i-open.org/county/brtf_final.pdf