Finished SET plan maps region's road to riches

Almost exactly a year after holding its first meeting at the Inn of the Mountain Gods, a group of civic and business leaders reconvened Monday to make final tweaks in the detailed economic development plan that their long series of meetings has produced.

The plan is not light reading. The finished document is 66 pages of situation analyses and statistics, formatted textbook-style with tables and to-do lists compiled in often cryptic shorthand, studded with agency acronyms, insider references, and business school prose.

But for anyone familiar with the topics it addresses, the Stronger Economies Together plan for Lincoln and Otero counties and Mescalero represents the most thorough collection that local minds could compile of the most promising steps the region should take toward greater prosperity and more jobs.

The principal writer/editor of the SET plan was Jim Miller Jr., an Alto business consultant and dean emeritus of ENMU-Ruidoso.

“I want to thank Jim Miller for taking all our off-the-wall ideas and turning them into a polished document,” said Ruidoso Community Development Director Greg Cory as the group wrapped up a final review of Miller's work, Cory served with Miller on the seven-member group that set the planning process in motion last fall.

Which among the scores of visions that are sketched in the plan will actually come to pass depends in each case on whether government bodies, civic leaders or entrepreneurs step forward with the energy, resources and motivation to make it happen.

But a number of the ideas in the plan already have that kind of momentum. The plan's Wellness, Medical and Behavioral Health segment includes the new Lincoln County Medical Center building, for which the Lincoln County Commission has put a bond issue on the November ballot. The Tourism, Recreation, Cultural Heritage segment lists the “MainStreet Ruidoso” project announced last week.

Other ideas, however, would begin from a standing start, since they now exist only in the plan and in the imaginations of the individuals who conceived them. In this category go such notions as “Implement bike share transit,” “two new vineyards near Lincoln and Hondo Valley, “expanded access to holistic medicine” and “new pickle ball courts in Carrizozo.”

Some proposals are airily general, such as “increase the number of family entertainment venues,” “address regional healthcare issues,” and “create a U.S. Highway 70 Ruidoso Downs enterprise zone.”

Others are as specific as a proposal could be, among them “develop annual farmer’s markets in Carrizozo, Capitan and Tularosa,” “attract four to five microbreweries to Cloudcroft, Ruidoso and Carrizozo,” “build three new 4-field softball parks in Ruidoso, Mescalero and Ruidoso Downs,” and “Re-open Roy’s Ice Cream Parlor in Carrizozo.”

The plan as a whole is not backed by authority or commitment from any county or municipality for its accomplishment, but that does not mean it has no significance.

Once it is approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is sponsoring similar rural community planning exercises around the country, the plan will make SET planners eligible for a $5,000 grant that can either be applied to a single project or used to start one or more task forces with the mission of pushing for implementation of plan recommendations.

The USDA-certified plan will also strengthen applications by government units, civic organizations or individuals who apply for any of a host of other state and federal grants to do one or more of the scores of things that the plan has identified as contributing to the economic growth of the region.

Dr. Michael Patrick of the New Mexico State University extension service, who guided SET participants in the planning process throughout the year, congratulated them on the fruits of the labor they began last October.

“One year later, you’ve got a pretty impressive document,” he said.