Independence boosts ICED's job retention efforts

The efforts to raise funds by the Independence Council for Economic Development was boosted Monday when the Independence City Council approved $30,000 to help ICED expand its goals to retain and attract businesses to the city.

“As an organization, we have actively been raising funds to expand our services and what we are able to do as an economic development organization,” said ICED President Tom Lesnak. “So far, we have raised an additional $30,000 in new private sector funding and will continue to grow our private sector investor base,” 

Coupled with the private funding, the payment from the city is crucial support for ICED’s mission, Lesnak said.

“These dollars, in addition to the added money from the city, will help us achieve our goals and objectives we have established,” Lesnak said, adding the city funding will allow for the expansion of ICED’s business retention program. 

“The biggest portion of it was the hiring of Jodi Krantz, who now coordinates our business retention program,” he said. “The addition of (Krantz) allows us to reach more Independence businesses and be more efficient in providing service to those companies. We anticipate it will triple our output of services to existing businesses in the community.”

City Manager Robert Heacock said the payment is just one step in formulating a better funding relationship between the city and the ICED. The money will be paid from the Power and Light fund operating budget, he said.

“I call it the mortar in-between the bricks of our foundation we are trying to lay for economic development,” Heacock said of ICED’s business retention program. “You have to have that connectivity, that mortar to bind everything together.”

Lesnak, on the job for nearly a year, said he believed ICED and the city have opened better lines of communication and the payment, coming from an amended contract, is proof the dialogue is working.

“It is hard to speak about the status of the relationship prior to my arrival, but I would like to think that there are better lines of communication and higher levels of collaboration as we work on projects,” Lesnak said.

“I know we’ve certainly partnered to support each other on such items as the Events Center, the Enhanced Enterprise Zone designation, the 23rd St. retail corridor survey and other projects. Each organization has inherent strengths and abilities and we realize that we become even stronger when we team together.”