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Date: 12/29/2021
BELCHERTOWN – During its Dec. 20 meeting, the Belchertown Select Board received a presentation about the town’s Rapid Recovery Program (RRP) and agreed to put out a request for proposal (RFP) for a contract for someone to use the plan as a blueprint to work with businesses in town.
Greg Rishane, the technical assistant who helped put together the RRP report, said he looked at existing town studies for recent years.
“What I went ahead and did was looked at some other plans that already exist including the conservation plan, which is almost done, the aging and dementia friendly plan as well the economic development chapter which was completed before we started on the RRP plan,” he said.
With the RRP, Rishane said one of the big focuses is working directly with businesses.
“The primary thing is business engagement and what we laid out here is really the low hanging fruit. One of the first things this person could do that would not require a lot of dynamic support from other areas is a starting a business guide,” he said.
Another part of the plan is creating a business pipeline tracking program.
“The related piece that was in the economic development plan was the business pipeline tracking program which would be keeping track of the people who are interested or asking about how they might get permitted to do something so you can see who is coming to Belchertown, who is already here, what are the obstacles that are appearing commonly and then you can act once you have that data,” Rishane said.
Using the information provided by Rishane, Select Board Chair Jennifer Turner said the plan is to send out an RFP for a contract position to be the point person for applying for grant funding and working on economic development in town. The initial funding for the position would come out of the town’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.
“Realistically what we are talking about is using some ARPA funding to make a contract position. [Town Planner] Doug [Albertson] and I actually were on a call this morning with some more folks that are related to the RFP process that are identifying financial resources and what they said was that you could use some of the ARPA funding to feed the beginnings of the contract and then there is more funding available for staff capacity,” she said. “This person would then be able to apply for other grants outside of the ARPA for additional funding.”
Vice Chair James Barry said hiring for the RFP and capitalizing on the studies would be direct support for businesses in town.
“The reason we are doing this is because we have done multiple studies over the last multiple years, all of which ended up with a to do list, many of the to do lists were very similar and Greg was good enough to help us prioritize and consolidate them,” he said. “These are things we ought to be doing, we are trying to help businesses, and this would make the effort visible and concrete.”
Barry added helping the businesses would also help residents in town.
“We are looking at somebody who is qualified and can take the ball and run with it. Hopefully we can get some things done we have been talking about for a number of years and increase economic development in town, which increases business taxes and decreases the burden on residentials, that is the point,” he said.
Board member Nicholas Pucel said he was in favor of the RFP.
“The intention of this is to be a catalyst for businesses here and if it is a self-sustaining catalyst and something you can give a push and let the momentum take it further and further itself, it sounds fantastic,” he said.
Based on some initial surveying of comparable places, Turner said the contract position would cost about $80,000.
While the discussion did not require a vote, the board agreed to move forward with putting out the contract position and will make a final vote once the RFP is brought back before the board for approval.