Local Leaders Are Reshaping America One Small Town at a Time

Friday, 06 March 2020 / Published in News + Updates

Article first appeared in StrongTowns on March 6 2020. Written by Quint Studer.

I’ve spent the last two years traveling across the country working with small to mid-sized towns on their revitalization efforts. And what I find is they’re getting lots of things right.

Civic-minded entrepreneurs and private citizens have taken the bull by the horns and are working hard to make their communities the best they can be. They’re finding ways to reinvent themselves, attract the right kinds of business, and transform into great places to work, live, and play.

Here are a few strategies community leaders are embracing as they work to create vibrancy:

They’re changing the conversation on who drives revitalization. It’s important to get citizens engaged in change. They (not government) have to lead the way. Leaders are getting people talking about and looking at the community in a new way. How can we develop and sustain communities that serve all of us and satisfy our human desire to be connected, all without putting unfair liabilities on future generations?

Decorah, Iowa. Image credit.

Decorah, Iowa. Image credit.

They’re tying their plans to economic growth. There’s just no other path for long-term job creation and a strong, sustainable tax base. It’s important for a community to know where its revenue comes from and, more importantly, know what isn’t generating revenue. For example, don’t build a beautiful bike path unless you are confident that it’s part of a plan that will ultimately spark economic growth.

They’re getting smart about the psychology of change. It’s only human to resist change, even when we know we need it. Someone is going to object to even the best-laid, most well-thought-out plans. That’s why leaders go into change initiatives expecting barriers and crafting plans to deal with them. The whole community will never get behind anything, so don’t waste energy on trying to convince the unconvinceable.

They’re connecting change initiatives to what citizens care about most. For example, it’s important not just to throw data at people, but rather to find a “burning platform” that speaks to their emotions. People make decisions with their hearts, not minds. You have to connect to something they care about. In Pensacola our burning platform was: What can we do to keep our children and grandchildren from leaving town? Once we framed the issues that way, we were able to get momentum behind the change.

They’re using objective data to drive decisions. Community dashboards keep critical metrics front and center. Just like a company, a community needs objective metrics to know how healthy they are, to identify areas that need improvement, and to gauge progress over time. They need to see all of them together and updated regularly. Think of how the dashboard of a car shows gas, oil, engine performance, temperature, and so forth. It’s a way to constantly be asking, How is our community doing on areas that are important to us? Wages? Crime? Education? High school dropout rate?

They’re rebuilding their downtowns. To attract businesses and talent to a community, it must have a walkable, livable, vibrant downtown with lots of great restaurants, shops, fun activities, and trendy residential areas. Young people, in particular, want to live, work, and play in the same area. When you start by revitalizing your downtown, it gets people activated and sparks growth in the rest of the community.

They’re making education a priority. A strong education system creates a strong talent base and appeals to investors. That’s why leaders are doing everything they can to improve theirs. In 2014 Pensacola had a 66 percent graduation rate and also a 66 percent kindergarten readiness rate. We connected the dots and realized if we focused on early brain development, we could impact graduation rates long-term. So we started a pilot program with local hospitals to work with new mothers. Now we are on track to become America’s first Early Learning City.

They’re getting aggressive about attracting investors. Local, organic investment is great. Leaders do everything they can to find, engage, and attract investors who already live in or have ties to the community. But they also know they need to attract external investors. This is both a science and an art. The “science” part is the dashboard, because it gives investors the metrics they need to know. The “art” part is the compelling story you build around that data: Does your community have a high graduation rate? Are there a lot of Millennials? Is the cost of living affordable? Focus on these selling points.

Denton, Texas. Image credit.

Denton, Texas. Image credit.

They’re managing incentives more thoughtfully. Incentives to attract big businesses tend to be overused. Sometimes they’re a good idea. Sometimes they’re not. It’s crucial for leaders to carefully evaluate these deals before deciding, handle them with transparency and fairness, and insist on clearly defined success metrics. And remember: The best strategy is to create such a dynamic, business-friendly community that incentives won’t be necessary. Businesses will want to come anyway.

They’re partnering with government the right way. More and more, leaders are realizing they shouldn’t depend on local government to drive growth. They likely don’t have the budget, nor are elected officials likely to be around to see long-term development projects through. Private investment must lead the way. Government is a wonderful partner and wants the same outcomes citizens do. Elected officials can focus on keeping the community clean and safe, being consistent and fair with guidelines and zoning rules, and enforcing codes.

They’re going to extraordinary lengths to engage citizens. The more successful leaders are at doing this, the more engaged the community becomes, and the more likely it is to meet its goals. His advice to leaders is to seek citizen feedback on everything. Communicate relentlessly. Connect back to the why behind what you’re doing and how it affects them. Once citizens are galvanized, they will turn out, take action, make their voices heard, and applaud leaders for making the community better.

They’re galvanizing their small business communities in ways that go beyond “business-friendliness.” Community leaders are starting to realize it’s not just about starting businesses, but about keeping them growing. Entrepreneurs rarely start out with a strong grasp of basic business skills. This is why Pensacola holds monthly training and development workshops, small business “roundtables,” and even an annual business conference (EntreCon). Once you galvanize the army of citizens who are business owners, they’ll be your catalysts for change and your sustainers. They’ll keep your growth on track.

They’re leveraging small successes to keep the momentum going. Great leaders never declare victory. The work of creating a vibrant community is never done. Use each success to grow more enthusiasm and grow the project base. Once you start having success, everyone starts feeling good about the community, and it becomes easy to keep the less successful projects from bringing down momentum. Community pride has a huge multiplier effect.

Creating a vibrant community is a journey. It’s not easy. But once you can get some wins under your belt, and get citizens behind you, you’ll start to see what is possible. That’s when the magic happens. When individuals come together with a common goal, it creates a synergy that’s unstoppable. This is how we’ll change America for the better—one community at a time.

Featured image via Unsplash.

About the Author

Quint+Studer.jpg

Quint Studer is author of Building a Vibrant Community: How Citizen-Powered Change Is Reshaping America and Wall Street Journal bestseller The Busy Leader’s Handbook: How to Lead People and Places That Thrive. He is founder of Pensacola’s Studer Community Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on improving the community’s quality of life, and Vibrant Community Partners, which coaches communities in building out a blueprint for achieving growth and excellence. Quint speaks and works with communities across the country, helping them execute on their strategic plans, create a better quality of life, and attract and retain talent and investment. He is a businessman, a visionary, an entrepreneur, and a mentor to many. He currently serves as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of West Florida, Executive-in-Residence at George Washington University, and Lecturer at Cornell University.

For more information, please visit www.thebusyleadershandbook.com, www.vibrantcommunityblueprint.com, and www.studeri.org.

INP Spring Meeting: 2020 Regional Economic Forecast

Friday, 17 January 2020 / Published in News + Updates

Date: March 24, 2020
Time: 9:00am-2:15pm (8:30am – Networking Breakfast)
Location: CenterPlace Regional Event Center
2426 North Discovery Place
Spokane Valley, WA. 99216

Click Here for Online Registration »
Meeting Agenda and Mail-In Registration Form Click Here »

North Idaho Paddlesport Manufacturer Expands into New Headquarters

Friday, 01 November 2019 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News on October 26, 2019.

Northwest River Supplies will operate from its newly built facility on South Blaine Street starting Nov. 5, according to an NRS news release distributed Friday.

The roughly 155,000-square-foot building includes a warehouse, customer service center and corporate offices. It will also be home to a 3,500-square-foot NRS flagship retail store, which will open Nov. 18, the release states.

NRS will be closed for business Friday through Nov. 4 as it moves into the building, a portion of which housed the former Tidyman’s supermarket.

The manufacturer of paddlesports equipment and apparel makes the move after occupying its South Main Street location since 1982. NRS has twice expanded its South Main Street building, and in 2006, acquired the South Blaine Street property.

The company has also owned or leased several additional spaces in Moscow. The new facility provides increased space for inventory and personnel while allowing NRS to locate all business functions under one roof.

“A big part of our success at NRS comes from a culture of inclusion and shared responsibility,” NRS Chief Financial Officer Tony Mangini said. “Having everyone working together in one building will encourage communication and collaboration throughout the business while supporting continued growth.”

NRS was founded in 1972 by Bill Parks, a former business professor at the University of Idaho. In 2014, NRS became 100 percent employee-owned and employs approximately 110 people in Moscow.

“Being based on the Palouse has been key to our success over the years,” Mangini said. “With two major universities in the area, we have access to top-tier talent. And the high quality of life makes people want to stay here and build careers.”

Last year, the new NRS headquarters received the first economic development property tax exemption in Latah County.

“We are grateful for the support we’ve been given from Latah County, the city of Moscow and our community on the Palouse,” Mangini said. “We look forward to creating a positive economic impact in our region for many years to come.”

Coeur d’Alene company delivers broadband to rural Idaho

Wednesday, 26 June 2019 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared in Idaho Business Journal on June 24, 2019. By Sharon Fisher.

COEUR D’ALENE — In many ways, getting broadband internet to rural Idaho feels familiar, said Mike Kennedy, president of Intermax Networks.

“A lot of people are contemplating how similar this is to rural electrification in the 1930s,” Kennedy mused.

As with rural electrification, the government is playing a large part in improving broadband internet in rural areas. Last fall, Intermax received $940,000 to improve service in Idaho’s panhandle from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which offered Idaho a share of the $1.49 billion it provided nationwide through its Phase II grants, funded by the Universal Service Fund. Intermax committed to providing 25 megabit per second (Mbps) download speed to 42 census block groups in north Idaho over the next five years.

In more metropolitan parts of the region, such as Coeur d’Alene itself, there might even be two fiber providers.

“But you get out to Rathdrum or Athol, there are none, and no expectations of it, due to density,” Kennedy said. “We have to figure out how to get those folks plugged in.”

In addition to those cities, Intermax also provides internet service to Hayden, Spirit Lake and Pinehurst, as well as operating Sandpoint’s city-owned fiber optic cable.

Much of Intermax’ service is provided through fixed wireless, which means the company puts a transmitter someplace central and tall – typically, in rural Idaho, the town’s water tower – and puts a receiver, which looks like a satellite dish, on customers’ homes. If the house has a sight line to the water tower, it can typically pick up the signal.

While it might not be as fast as a direct connection, it’s a lot cheaper than laying cable, Kennedy said.

“As long as they have line of sight, or near line of sight, you don’t have to tear up roads and rights-of-way,” he said.

And the speed – up to 100 Mbps – should be plenty, he said.

“Everyone gets excited about gigabit internet,” but people generally need only 8 to 12 Mbps, he said. “25 or 100 Mbps is going to be incredibly groundbreaking for rural areas.”

In one example, Intermax is going to be improving internet access around Schweitzer Mountain Resort, Kennedy said. There are 900 residences in the region that are “deeply underserved,” he said. His company will lay fiber to the top of the mountain, for nine miles, from Sandpoint, following the road and using utility easements. That fiber – aside from supporting conferences and other activities in Schweitzer – will feed the microwave transmitter that’s already on top of the mountain and improve service to those 900 residences, he said.

Kennedy was appointed to Gov. Brad Little’s Idaho Broadband Task Force, which was created in May through executive order. Little came to North Idaho last fall, as lieutenant governor, on an economic development trip, and met with Kennedy to talk about the FCC award.

“I found him to be an extremely quick study, well read and understood things that are completely boring and unsexy, like putting extra conduit in the highway,” Kennedy said.

That extra conduit can be used later to string cable without having to dig up the highway again, a policy underway in a number of areas nationwide called “dig once.” At that time, Kennedy volunteered for whatever Little planned to do to improve Idaho’s internet service, which numerous studies have found ranks near the bottom nationwide.

The broadband task force will help determine the role that the state can play in improving broadband internet in Idaho, such as by offering incentives or tax credits, Kennedy said. And while rural residents used to be fine without broadband internet, that’s no longer true, he said.

“I can’t think of anyone I’ve talked to who didn’t want it on some level,” Kennedy said. “Rural folks can live off the grid, because they have access to their job elsewhere, or can sell products from rural North Idaho. It’s people in rural areas with the greatest needs.”

Commerce Directors talk Better Broadband at Summer INP Meeting

Tuesday, 11 June 2019 / Published in News + Updates

Originally published in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News on June 8, 2019. By Anthony Kuipers, Daily News staff writer.

Lisa Brown, Washington Department of Commerce director, and Tom Kealey, Idaho Department of Commerce director, spoke Friday about the economies in their respective states during an Inland Northwest Partners conference at Banyan’s on the Ridge in Pullman.

Commerce Directors Lisa Brown (Wash., left) and Tom Kealey (Idaho, right) in Pullman for the Summer INP Meeting on June 7.

“I see broadband as really a significant challenge to get right,” Brown said.

“We’ve got to understand what we have and what we don’t have in order to appropriately direct investment into that middle mile and last mile,” she said. “That’s always the most challenging piece of deploying communications or telecommunications technology.”

Washington is trying to help rural areas with this problem by establishing a statewide broadband office that would coordinate grants to governments and tribes for broadband infrastructure.

Washington 9th District Rep. Mary Dye, R-Pomeroy, told the Daily News in April that she and her colleagues in the House supported the legislation because it will increase competition in the internet service provider marketplace and bring better service to rural Washington.

In Idaho, Gov. Brad Little signed an executive order in May establishing the Idaho Broadband Task Force, Kealey said.

The 40-member task force this fall will bring to the governor recommendations on ways the state can improve connectivity and speeds across Idaho.

The task force will try to map existing services and gaps in broadband infrastructure, which Kealey said will paint a picture for what resources are needed in rural and urban areas.

“We want to map what we have, be able to measure what we have in terms of access as well as speeds and features and services and options,” he said.

Brown pitched another idea that may bring people and commerce to eastern Washington. In light of Microsoft and other corporations last year offering funding to build a high-speed railway from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Portland, Brown said she would like to see a similar railway that connects western Washington with eastern Washington.

Brown and Kealey highlighted some positives in Washington and Idaho economies.

Washington’s overall economy is booming, with the highest GDP growth and 10th largest economy in the country.

“If we were a country, we’d be up there with Sweden or Belgium right now,” he said.

Kealey said Idaho is near the top of the rankings in several economic categories including first in travel dollars, third in the number of people moving to the state and fourth in job growth.

Idaho and Washington leaders meet in Pullman to talk Economic Trends, Value-Added Agriculture

Friday, 24 May 2019 / Published in News + Updates

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 24, 2019 (LIBERTY LAKE, Wash.)—Inland Northwest Partners announces their summer meeting to be held at Banyan’s on the Ridge (Palouse Ridge Golf Course) in Pullman on June 7, 9:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m., with a continental breakfast beginning at 8:30 a.m. Lisa Brown, Director of Washington State Department of Commerce and Tom Kealey, Director of Idaho Department of Commerce, will share the keynote presentation titled, “State of the States: Trends Shaping the Economies of Washington and Idaho.” Cost for INP members is $40, nonmembers is $60. To register, visit inwp.org/events.

The presentations of Directors Brown and Kealey will culminate a day of presentations under the theme of “Value-Added Agriculture: Cultivating New Jobs for Your Community”.

“Throughout the Inland Northwest Region, it’s exciting to see even more economic activity and job creation related to our strong agricultural sector from crop production, craft brewing, and agritourism.,” says Paul Kimmell, Chairman of INP Board of Directors. “It’s always great to showcase some of this success and continue to build on these opportunities.”

Other presentations include Chanel Twealt, COO for the Idaho Department of Agriculture, who will discuss agriculture as a regional economic driver; Dr. Laura Lewis, from WSU Food Systems, who will discuss the craft brewing and distilling industry; and, Adams County Economic Development Director, Stephen McFadden, who will discuss renewable energy, food processing and the cannabis industry.

Inland Northwest Partners members meet quarterly to share common economic challenges and solutions within the eastern Washington and northern Idaho region. Topics include technology, financing community initiatives, forging regional partnerships, local business expansion and retention, and job recruitment. INP often partners with local chambers or state organizations for value-added training.

Banyans on the Ridge is located at the Palouse Ridge Golf Course, 1260 NE Palouse Ridge Dr. in Pullman. For more information about becoming a member of Inland Northwest Partners, visit inwp.org or email [email protected]. 

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Inland Northwest Partners (INP) is a non-profit organization focused on enhancing the long-term vitality of a two-state region through its core offering of educational meetings, programs and seminars.  More than 300 business and community leaders from eastern Washington and northern Idaho are members. INP is also part of a regional marketing effort known as the Inland Northwest Economic Alliance (INEA), a consortium of fourteen economic development agencies. To learn more, visit inwp.org.

Creative Sector Initiatives and Why They Matter

Tuesday, 12 March 2019 / Published in News + Updates

first posted in the National Governor’s Association via Medium, March 8, 2019.

The Creative Sector: A Proven Economic Catalyst for Rural America

Rural regions contain some of our nation’s most iconic landscapes and cherished heritage, yet many of them are struggling with persistent economic obstacles. Rural America is contending with the outmigration of young and skilled workers, low levels of educational attainment, infrastructure needs (both physical and digital), rising poverty rates, barriers to health care and poor health outcomes and problems related to an evolving economy ― especially the loss of industry.

While the overall U.S. economy has rebounded from the most recent recession, rural areas have not shared equally in the gains. In spite of facing similar problems, some rural areas have prospered since the Great Recession: They experienced population growth, earnings growth, higher household incomes and the ability to attract and retain workers.

The “secret sauce” for those prospering rural areas is their ability to leverage their creative sector assets to catalyze economic and workforce development initiatives in those rural areas. An extensive body of research by economists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Endowment for the Arts has found:

When these principles are applied within a state’s existing policy framework, the steps can lift employment, wages and the quality of place in rural areas.

The action guide features numerous successful high-profile examples of states, regions and rural communities that have become more economically resilient and sustainable through creative sector initiatives. The Montana Artrepreneur Program, for example, expands entrepreneurial opportunities for rural visual artists by providing personal coaching and other business and marketing training over 10 months. Artists who received certification through the program between 2009 and 2014 experienced, on average, a 650 percent net sales increase and an 87 percent increase in out-of-state sales.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts is promoting creative entrepreneurship by providing access to “maker” equipment, such as 3D printers, through rural libraries. This is intended to help strengthen the maker culture in rural areas and expand the libraries’ roles as anchor organizations for economic development. The libraries are supported by community action teams who are reaching out to residents and offering training.

States can similarly encourage rural community colleges to serve as anchors for creativity-based economic growth. Sheridan, a city in rural northern Wyoming, has been beefing up its creative economic development for more than a decade. It started by collaborating with the Northern Wyoming Community College District to commission a cultural sector inventory and form a local Creative Economies Council. The Wyoming Arts Council funded the community college district’s theater and dance program organizations, which gradually became prominent parts of the local asset portfolio. The state also contributed to funding the redevelopment of a Performing Arts and Education Center affiliated with the local college ― all to the benefit of the surrounding rural region.

Every state has rural areas, including some that we don’t normally think about as being rural, such as New York and Maryland. In New York, interagency coordination has been the key to providing grants focusing on workforce development incorporating the arts. The state’s Regional Economic Councils (REDCs), through the New York State Council on the Arts, are providing $5 million to support projects using the arts to foster workforce readiness and development. Local organizations can apply to develop career-training programs in artistic fields, including internships and apprenticeships in collaboration with high schools, community colleges and four-year colleges. Also, grants for large capital improvement projects through the Arts and Culture Facilities Improvement Grant Program are similarly being offered through the REDCs. The projects are intended to promote accessibility, stability and sustainability of cultural arts facilities and strengthen tourism and business development statewide ― “including in rural communities where such investments can be particularly impactful.” In 2018, the program awarded $20 million for capital improvement projects, and another $10 million is planned in 2019.

Further, some states have designated or certified creative districts that support workforce development. For example, in 2016, Maryland’s 24 state-designated Arts and Entertainment Districts supported more than 8,500 jobs, which collectively yielded $267 million in wages, $63.2 million in local and state tax revenue and almost $856 million in state economic output. Today, Maryland has 26 such districts.

The Next Generation Initiative headquartered in rural Iowa is a collaboration between the Art of the Rural and the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Iowa to strengthen connections among the arts, public policy and community and economic development. The Initiative’s web-based Digital Learning Commons and Exchange features how-to material on rural “creative placemaking” which occurs when arts organizations and community development practitioners deliberately integrate the arts and culture into community revitalization work and engage partners from a range of sectors, such as agriculture and food, and policy areas such as economic development, community development, housing and workforce development.

NGA’s forthcoming action guide, Rural Prosperity through the Arts and Creative Sector: A Rural Action Guide for Governors and States, outlines principles, process steps and further examples that constitute an overall Systems Change Framework for rural America based on the creative sector. The Systems Change Framework is organized according to five key roles for governors and states: providing leadership; capitalizing on cultural assets; building the state’s infrastructure for creative partnerships with other policy areas; developing local talent with creative skills and creating an environment friendly to investment and innovation. The guide will be released March 12, 2019. Follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #ruralarts.

New Commerce Leadership on Both Sides of the Border

Thursday, 14 February 2019 / Published in News + Updates
WASHINGTON

Lisa J. Brown, Ph.D., was appointed Commerce Director by Washington Gov. Inslee and began serving the agency in February of 2019. Prior to serving as Commerce director, Brown served as chancellor of Washington State University, where she led the health science campus in Spokane.

Brown served in the Washington State Legislature from 1996 – 2013 in the Senate where she was majority leader and chaired the Rules Committee, Ways and Means Committee, and Energy, Technology and Telecommunications Committee. She served in the state House of Representatives from 1993 – 1996, where she was minority whip and minority floor leader.

She has worked extensively on economic development in Eastern Washington and on gender equity.

Brown earned her bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Illinois and her master’s and doctoral degrees in economics from the University of Colorado in Boulder.

IDAHO

Tom Kealey is Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s appointment to serve as Director of the Department of Commerce, and began his service in January of 2019.  Kealey is co-owner of restaurant Chicago Connection and a former Morrison-Knudsen executive, and served on the Idaho Endowment Fund Investment Board under Governor Dirk Kempthorne.

A lifelong Republican and retired CPA, Kealey believes in protecting the Idaho Constitution, taxpayers money and credit rating.

Kealey earned his accounting and finance degree from the University of Washington and an MBA in Strategic Planning and Marketing from Harvard Business School.

Continued Job Growth in Spokane Metropolitan Area

Thursday, 31 January 2019 / Published in News + Updates

Originally appeared in the Spokesman-Review, 24 January 2019. By Becky Kramer of THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW 

Education, health were key drivers in 2018, says economist

About 6,200 new jobs were created in the Spokane metropolitan area last year, reflecting the fourth year of strong regional job growth. The area includes Spokane, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties. For four years straight, the three-county area has gained more than 5,000 jobs annually.

Education and health care were drivers of job growth in 2018, said Doug Tweedy, regional labor economist for the Washington Employment Security Department. Both sectors added about 1,500 jobs last year.

Manufacturing also had a strong year, and so did professional and technical jobs. Attorneys’ offices and accountants were hiring last year, Tweedy said.

For comparison, the Spokane metro area created about 5,300 jobs in 2017.

Unemployment averaged 6 percent for the Spokane metro area in 2018, compared to 5.5 percent the year before.

Spokane County’s unemployment averaged 5.3 percent last year; Stevens County was at 7.2 percent; and Pend Oreille County at 7.3 percent.

CONTACT THE WRITER:(509) 459-5466 [email protected]

Lind, Washington Boasts The Largest Solar Farm In The State

Wednesday, 23 January 2019 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared in the Columbia Basin Herald, 12 December 2018.

HARVESTING THE SUN

Lind boasts the largest solar array in the state

By EMRY DINMAN

LIND — Leaders from Adams County and the state at large flocked to the outskirts of the small town of Lind in October 2018 to commemorate the ribbon cutting of Washington’s largest solar array, the Adams Nielson Solar Farm, by Governor Jay Inslee and Lind-Ritzville Middle School Associated Student Body President Raegan Snider.

“It is a glorious day in Adams County, because Adams County has understood solar power for a long, long time,” Inslee said at the October ceremony. “It has long harvested photons through the power of photosynthesis to produce the best wheat in the world. This is just another generation of the development of solar power.”

As far as the eye can see, dark blue panels are tilted to soak up the sun, perched on barren dirt in this small corner of the Eastern Columbia Basin. The 200-acre solar farm is capable of producing 28 megawatts of energy, enough electricity to power 4,000 homes. The same amount of energy would release nearly 40,604 tons of carbon dioxide if it were produced by traditional fossil fuel generators, according to figures provided by Avista.

Energy generated by the facility power will be available to commercial and business consumers through Avista’s Solar Select Program. Businesses can purchase that power with an eight-year commitment, limited to 1.2 million kilowatt-hours per year at a rate of 5.3 cents per kilowatthour.

Inslee was joined by politicians from the region, including U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-WA, state House Minority Leader Rep. Mark Schoesler, Adams County Commissioner John Marshall, Lind Mayor Paula Bell and student leaders from Lind-Ritzville Middle School, which is located just over a ridge from the solar farm. Inslee referenced these students throughout his speech, and later asked Snider to join him in using a large pair of novelty scissors to cut the ribbon.

“These kids are going to be working on new technologies like this, building on this proud tradition of solar energy,” Inslee said. “The future of these kids is symbolized by these solar panels.”

Avista and Strata Solar jointly funded a $10,000 donation to the neighboring Lind-Ritzville Middle School for a digital reader board, delivering an oversized check to the Associated Student Body shortly before the ribbon-cutting.

Newhouse, the region’s congressman, praised what is only the latest addition to the region’s diversity of existing renewable energy sources, including nuclear, biomass, wind, hydro and now solar power.

“With further research and development, we can have the capacity to usher in a new era of energy production in the United States that provides a stable source of energy while also protecting our environment for generations to come,’ Newhouse said.

State Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, credited a speedy approval process on the county’s management practices and support from the Adams County Development Council.

Event speakers widely praised the efforts of Economic Development Director Stephen McFadden, who worked to get the facility located in the county and to make the permitting process as painless as possible. For his part, McFadden said much of the credit belonged to the development council as a whole, as well as various county agencies which worked in concert to move the project forward quickly.

Adams County will receive approximately $4 million over the next 20 years in property tax revenues from the array site, according to a press release, a groundswell of financial support for the relatively tiny community. “We have tremendous untapped potential here,” McFadden said. “We’re trying to grow and diversify the county’s economy by bringing in new businesses and job creators. They generate critical new tax base to support all of the things that already exist here.”