Meeting reminder - April 12

Hello Friends and Optimists,

I am excited to let everyone know that Sheri Maupin, spokesperson for America's Best Communities and manager of Idaho First Bank, will be our speaker on Tuesday. She will be presenting as a "dress rehearsal" the presentation that will be presented for our region at the America's Best Communities Semi-Finals. It is a 10 min presentation about a plan that has truly begun to unite McCall, Donnelly, Meadows Valley, and Cascade together with an ambitious economic development plan. Belinda and I are also on the steering committee that wrote the plan. We are all looking for your input on Sheri's presentation and how it may be better or what specifically is good in it. She will be presenting the West Central Mountain's presentation at the end of this month in North Carolina.

What is the America's Best Communities contest? You may have read in the McCall Star News over the last several weeks a multi-part article about the West Central Mountains community and what we on the steering committee learned and worked together to create this economic plan. Our community started about a 16 months ago entering a contest sponsored by Frontier Communications, Dish Network, The Weather Channel, and other corporate sponsors. Approximately 150 rural communities joined in and Valley County Meadows Valley was selected to be in the top 50 giving us $65,000 to further develop the plan. Then a couple of months ago we made it into the top 15. This provided us a trip to North Carolina to present our plan to an independent judging panel made up of experts in the economic development field. After Sheri presents the judges will decide on the top 8 communities. These top 8 communities will be given $100,000 to implement the plan over the following 11 months. At the end of the 11 month period, the three communities that have accomplished the most of their plan will be awarded 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. The 3rd place community wins $1,000,000 to continue implementing our plan. The 2nd place community wins $2,000,000 and 1st place wins $3,000,000 to complete the plan.

Please help our community become the #1 America's Best Community by attending the Optimists meeting on Tuesday to help Sheri, Belinda and me to make our community's presentation the best it can be. When we win, you can feel proud that you helped our community win.

Thanks,
Craig Campbell