By Robert Williams

Editor

Economic development consultant Karen Pifher’s monthly report to the Frazee Economic Development Authority (EDA) Tuesday, Dec. 31, highlighted that Fuller House will be taking applications this spring to build a new house in town.

Millard Fuller founded Habitat for Humanity with his wife Linda in 1976, but both departed from the board in 2005 after clashes with how corporate the organization had gotten. In turn, the Fullers created The Fuller Center for Housing to continue their mission.

Families that can help with the building process and have an ability to pay costs based on income are qualifying criteria. Pifher stated she believed applications will be available in March.

Applications for the Greater Blessing program are currently being reviewed. 

The program is designed to help low income homeowners, often the elderly and handicapped, do basic health and safety repairs to their homes. In many cases these repairs allow the homeowner to stay in a house that they might otherwise be forced to leave.

The program allows for repairs costing up to $5,000 in materials and professional labor. Most of the work is done by volunteers working with the homeowner. There are no loan documents with this program. Instead, the homeowner is asked to repay the costs, over time and with no interest charged, on terms they can afford. Their payments stay in the community to assist other families and the homeowner gets the Greater Blessing of giving back.

A key component of the program is the Greater Blessing Box. Once the costs have been established, the homeowner, working with the Family Partnering Committee, determines an amount that they can pay each month. The total costs are then divided by that amount to determine the number of payments to be made. When the work is completed and dedicated, the family receives a Greater Blessing Box containing envelopes for each monthly payment.

Requirements: The beneficiary must own and occupy the home, have income at 50 percent or less of the local median, have no other resources with which to make the repairs, and have sufficient income to repay the construction costs.

The Construction Committee will meet with the homeowner to determine the scope of health and safety work required and develop a construction budget. Care should be taken to look for underlying issues that are so often found in older homes and can greatly increase the construction costs. As this program is intended for projects costing no more than $5,000 in materials and professional labor, the committee may determine that the property’s needs exceed that amount and that it won’t qualify.

2025 Members

There were two candidates for one officer position on the EDA replacing former member Ted Anderson. The board discussed the qualifications of Heather Perrine and Bill Daggett to fill the one year left on Anderson’s six-year term.

Both parties completed applications and a questionnaire.

Perrine is the owner of The Monarch Coffee House while Daggett was a member of the Hawley EDA for eight years. Pifher shared her experience having worked with both candidates and expressed positive remarks on how active each has been in the community, despite doing so in different ways.

“They both have great talents, just in different ways,” said Pifher. 

Daggett’s significant experience on a formal EDA, especially during a growth spurt in Hawley, was the major difference between the two candidates.

“We extend our huge appreciation to Heather for the application, said Andrea Froeber. 

Multiple board members expressed how they would like to appoint both candidates, but the EDA is limited to a seven-member board by its bylaws.

2025 officers will be elected at the January meeting. The two City Council liaisons to the EDA for 2025 will be Froeber and Drew Daggett.

Meetings

EDA meetings in 2025 will be held on the fourth Tuesday of each month at 11:30 a.m., at the Fire Hall, instead of the “last” Tuesday of each month beginning Tuesday, Jan. 28.

Professional recruitment

A committee has been formed to assist Dr. Randall Lindemann DVM in finding a replacement at Acorn Lake Veterinary Service. Recommendations were received to create a Frazee Professional Recruitment and Investment fund in which people can donate and invest in it to provide qualified candidates to receive annual funding. The funding would go along with a contract to remain in the community for a predetermined length of time.

Lindemann told the Forum he was closing in on retirement and discussed increasing investment options in the vet service in a November 2023 feature. At that time, there was a former Frazee student who was interested in potentially taking over the service and Lindemann was willing to train in his replacement prior to retirement.

Lindemann also specializes in treating large animals, which makes the potential loss of the vet service even more damaging. 

“There is already a shortage and it would be a huge loss for the community,” said Pifher.

A non-profit organization was approached to host the fund as the fiscal agent and that is going to a board meeting for a final decision.

The EDA would be able to review applications and assist with fundraising while the non-profit would handle the finance.

The fund would not be created just for the veterinary position. In the future, it could be used to bring other hard to attract positions to Frazee, like dentists, lawyers, doctors, etc.

“I’ll be honest, I’m not worried about raising the funds,” Pifher said. “I think there are enough people that value having a vet in our community.”

The EDA unanimously approved creating a committee to create the fund and what criteria will be used in applying the funding.