RUMFORD – Despite knowing towns are struggling with budgets, the recession and a few hundred area layoffs, River Valley Growth Council directors learned Wednesday night that the council will again press towns for financial appropriations.
The money, coupled with grants, private fundraising, and rents from business tenants in the River Valley Technology Center, which the council manages, allows the council to encourage and assist economic and commercial development in Andover, Byron, Canton, Carthage, Dixfield, Hanover, Mexico, Peru, Roxbury and Rumford.
According to council Administrative Assistant Beverly Crosby, the council will ask Dixfield, Mexico and Rumford to each contribute $16,000 as their share, while the remaining seven smaller towns are being asked to appropriate $1,500 each.
“We’re gearing up to go back to the towns for the same amounts we did last year, but I think it will be harder than usual due to current budget hardships like dealing with the heavy snowfall and costs of having to dump it,” Crosby said after Wednesday night’s directors meeting in the technology center.
“We’re also getting ready to do our private fundraisings to businesses in our area’s 10 towns,” she said.
Crosby told directors the council recently received Carthage’s $1,500 for last year’s appropriation.
According to minutes from the board’s previous meeting on Dec. 3, the council also received $16,000 from Mexico, $1,500 from Hanover and $500 from Canton for fiscal year 2008-09 appropriations.
Directors learned on Wednesday night that work to land another medical company as a tenant may soon pay off, but she declined to state the company’s name or provide further information.
“Since we’re now considered a mixed-use incubator, we could fill the rest of the space on this floor. It’s a big one. We’re keeping our fingers crossed,” Crosby said of the center’s first floor, which has 6,700 remaining square feet available.
In January, Crosby said she met with health care representatives and they brainstormed possible future tenants to approach.
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