Grow Washington-Aroostook strategic planning efforts

    CARIBOU, Maine — The most extensive strategic planning process ever undertaken in Aroostook and Washington counties is nearing completion and the public is invited to provide their input.
Grow Washington-Aroostook (Gro-WA) is about economic development, job creation and much more according to lead team member Michael Eisensmith, the director of regional planning at the Northern Maine Development Commission.
The initiative focused on the key topic areas of economic and workforce development, renewable energy, brownfields and economic renewal, transportation infrastructure, modernizing communications and electric utility infrastructure, sustainable housing, transportation and housing, healthy communities, climate change and infrastructure resilience, water infrastructure investment and growth management law change.
Information gathered during the process is available at www.gro-wa.org.
“There is an ability to download and comment on each of the executive summaries on the webpage,” said Eisensmith. “The executive summaries represent the essence of each one of the work components that we worked on.”
The executive summaries can be found on the left side of the www.gro-wa.org home page.
Eisensmith said the report will be finalized in the very near future, but there is still time for people who wish to comment on those sections. He added the deadline for comments is May 2.    The lead agency, NMDC, received an $800,000 Sustainable Communities Regional Planning grant from the Housing and Urban Development Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities. Staff from Washington County Council of Governments, Sunrise County Economic Council and the Aroostook Washington Workforce Investment Board provided primary help with work on the grant. They were supplemented by many other partner organizations that helped provide guidance and feedback in exploring the key topic areas referenced above. The ultimate purpose of this process is to point to actionable steps that lead to increased job creation and economic stability.
“The Gro-WA plan looks at a wide variety of economic, environmental and social issues and provides a broad game plan to move our economy forward,” said Eisensmith.
For more information or to comment, contact Eisensmith at meisensmith@nmdc.org or by phone at 493-5763.