{"id":96839,"date":"2018-12-07T11:23:18","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T18:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-economic-development-alliance-looking-for-new-leader\/"},"modified":"2018-12-07T11:23:18","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T18:23:18","slug":"la-plata-county-economic-development-alliance-looking-for-new-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-economic-development-alliance-looking-for-new-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"La Plata County Economic Development Alliance looking for new leader"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Members
Members of the La Plata Economic Development Alliance visit the Ignacio Community Library in 2017 after the alliance provided funds to help the library pay for high-speed internet. Visiting the library were Chris McCroskey, left, and Roger Zalneraitis of the alliance. Zalneraitis has announced that he is leaving the organization to take a job with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe.<\/span>Melanie Brubaker Mazur\/Pine River Times file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Roger Zalneraitis, who has led the La Plata County Economic Development Alliance for eight years, has accepted an offer to become economic development manager for the Permanent Fund of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe.<\/p>\n

He will begin his new position with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe<\/a> next week. His last day with the alliance<\/a> was Thursday.<\/p>\n

\"Zalneraitis\"
Zalneraitis<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI\u2019ve been with the alliance for eight years, and the average stay in an economic development job is five years, so it\u2019s not a sudden move,\u201d Zalneraitis said. \u201cI\u2019ve never been a big believer in staying too long in a position. It will provide me with new challenges and opportunities and it\u2019s good for the alliance. They can find someone who can approach the job with fresh eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zalneraitis said efforts to create a relocation program to attract primary employers \u2013 principally office operations such as boutique software, engineering and financial firms \u2013 to La Plata County and an effort to create an inventory of available land and office space for firms interested in moving here were major accomplishments during his tenure.<\/p>\n

Increasing cooperation with municipal planners is also paying off, Zalneraitis said. He expects additional space for business relocation to become available in 2019 and thereafter because of cooperative work between the town of Bayfield and the alliance.<\/p>\n

Providing more stable, streamlined and efficient land-use planning for businesses and addressing affordable housing needs in La Plata County, Zalneraitis said, are keys locally to unlocking economic prosperity and diversity.<\/p>\n

Zalneraitis said zoning, at least in certain portions of the county, would provide stability for firms looking to relocate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more efficient for firms and it helps with infrastructure planning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Providing housing affordable to the workforce is another critical need.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to keep a stable workforce when someone gets a job offer at the same salary, but where the housing costs are 60 percent of what they are here,\u201d Zalneraitis said. \u201cIt goes beyond economic development. You lose some vitality as a community when you have houses that are affordable only as retirement homes or second homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

La Plata County Economic Development Alliance will tap into a database of 5,000 economic development professionals operated by the National Rural Economic Developers Association<\/a> in search of a permanent replacement.<\/p>\n

Dye said the alliance is especially looking at economic developers who have experience working across state lines and regionally.<\/p>\n

He noted Four Corners Economic Development<\/a> in Farmington is also looking for an executive director, and it is an opportune time to increase collaboration and communication among all regional economic development groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the same boat, so the timing feels right to find synergies that we can work on together to achieve,\u201d Dye said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re never going to be able to attract a manufacturing facility that needs 20,000 square feet in La Plata County, but in Aztec, Bloomfield and Cortez, they have those facilities, and the executives are attracted to Durango.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zalneraitis accepts position with Southern Utes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5742,5735],"tags":[374,629],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-96839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","tag-economic-development","tag-southern-ute-indian-tribe"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96839"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=96839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}