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Local, federal agency leaders not on same page over grant monies
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Jan 14, 2010 - 11:31:32 AM

 By MELODY JAMESON
mj@observernews.net

Ruskin – Leaving the door wide open for continued pursuit of a US Department of Agriculture grant, Florida officials have kicked back this community’s application aimed at funding a local business incubator study.

Local leaders are interpreting the action as a turn-down, are expressing regret and are suggesting the local business incubator project might be attained through another approach.

One of their leading contacts within the department, however, is calling only for what he portrays as a small ”adjustment” to make the application fly.

Fred Jacobsen, a Ruskin Community Development Foundation (RCDF) director, said this week that as the result of a telephone conversation Friday with Vernon Fuller, a USDA state-wide rural services manager, he understood the department would not provide a grant to underwrite a Ruskin area business incubator feasibility study. RCDF, a not-for-profit community advocacy group, made the grant proposal to USDA.

Jacobsen, RCDF president when the grant application was drafted by foundation consultant, community planner and demographics expert Jim Hosler, told The Observers “he (Fuller) said the grant proposal could be re-submitted at a later date but that our feasibility study grant would not now be funded.”

“I’m deeply disappointed,” Jacobsen added.

Fuller, though, told The Observer News all that is required is “adjustment” to the application; small changes amounting merely to “tweeking” the grant request rather than revamping the application. Fuller, at the same time declined to explain the adjustments needed. “I’d rather they told you about them,” he said, deferring to the grant applicants.

In addition, Fuller noted the funds necessary to meet the $50,000 grant request are available. It “still can be done,” he said. And, while there is no timeframe set for adjusting the application, the sooner it is done, the sooner funds can be at hand, he indicated.

Hosler, the consultant who noted he has worked on the grant for many months now and taken it through several permutations, echoed Jacobsen’s sentiments, saying he also is disappointed the application continues up in the air.

The sticking point, he indicated, may be that the department does not like a situation in which the grant writer also is someone doing work under the grant’s operation. “I think that’s an unrealistic outlook,” Hosler said. Making that kind of change in the application at this point is more than “a tweek, it’s a twank!,” the consultant added.

The original RCDF grant request, for $80,000 as outlined in USDA guidelines, was submitted early last summer following a day-long community appraisal by 10 USDA officials who encouraged local leaders to pursue the grant that would pay for the feasibility study. Such a study, if substantiating the community need, then would have been used to support a USDA loan application for creation of a jobs-generating small business incubator. The incubator concept, when applied in small, rural communities, helps new business enterprises get started in a nominal rent location with experienced business tutoring made available to nurture them.
The first grant request later was scaled back to $50,000 at USDA suggestion, Jacobsen noted. And, as of Friday, it appeared to be “effectively scaled back to zero,” he added.

 Jacobsen said he expects the new developments to be considered by the RCDF board within a matter of days. The choices essentially are to spend more money, time and energy on making changes to satisfy USDA officials or to “cut our losses” and work on producing an incubator through other approaches.

Regarding the first instance, Jacobsen said “I’m speaking solely as one director and not for the board, but I’m not at all sure now that another application would be any more successful than the last one.

On the other hand, if the second option were the choice, there’s both precedent and potential opportunity supporting the approach, he noted. The county’s small business development section stands ready to provide both counsel and encouragement, he noted, adding that perhaps the business incubator could be achieved through a cooperative effort by RCDF and the recently-formed South Hillsborough Economic Development (SHED) Council.

The county-owned Camp Bayou, an environmental and education preserve on the north shore of the Little Manatee River, is managed, maintained and used by RCDF under a lease agreement with Hillsborough County, he pointed out. There may be several sites in the South County area which are county property and either vacant now or slated to become vacant, he added. “ One of them might be converted easily to a business incubator” under the same sort of lease arrangement, he suggested. Jacobsen said he’d like to explore the possibilities with county leaders.
Hosler added that “I know there’s a need (for the business incubator); I know there are entrepreneurs” in South Hillsborough County. And, it’s often the small businesses in a community, he summed up, that generate the jobs that support that economy.  
Copyright 2010 Melody Jameson

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