2002 Annual Report Executive Summary
Five Star Rural Enterprise Community
The Five Star Enterprise Community is a partnership of 5 census tracts located in Eastern Washington State, Tri-County Economic Development District, and USDA Rural Development. This rural region is sparsely populated and suffers from chronic high unemployment, extremely low per capita incomes and high poverty rates. By partnering with USDA Rural Development, the Enterprise Community Initiative has been a catalyst to help develop projects and new programs in this region that address issues such as economic development, housing, work force training, telecommunications, capacity building, health care, and community infrastructure.
The Five Star is comprised of Tri-County Economic Development District as Lead Agency, two census tracts (9803 & 9702) and two developable sites within the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Spokane Reservation (census tract 9510), the City of Newport (census tract 9703), North Ferry County (census tract 9801), and a developable site of the Kalispel Reservation. These communities have traditionally been somewhat isolationist in character. The Enterprise Community Initiative has brought these diverse communities together to accomplish an historical feat of cross-cultural and intergovernmental success. The Enterprise Initiative has energized the Five Star communities to tackle the lack of public infrastructure with a vengeance.
2002 has seen groundbreaking ceremonies for new, state of the art health care facilities in Keller and Inchelium on the Colville Reservation. These projects brought to the forefront the problem of inadequate water and sewer systems in these communities. As a result, both communities have also begun upgrading of water and sewer systems. The City of Newport has completed all preliminary phases of their $2.1 million dollar sewer project that is now fully funded and will be going to bid for construction in April 2003. Ferry County has begun a solid waste composting facility study, and the Spokane Tribe has completed improvements of the Reservation Road Water Tower. The community of Curlew and the Spokane Reservation are in the initial stages of building and equipping new emergency services facilities.
The Five Star Enterprise Community has identified over 138 benchmarks, 52 of which are completed. As we move into our fourth year we will continue to improve infrastructure while beginning to focus more on sustainable economic development with projects such as the Kalispel Industrial Park Project, Newport Business Park, Nespelem and Newport Downtown Revitalizations, Inchelium and Newport Agricultural Cooperatives, and an area-wide firefighters, search & rescue, and emergency medical services training facility at Barstow. Collectively, these projects are expected to aid in the retention of 15 jobs and the creation of up to 30 jobs. To date the Five Star Enterprise Community has leveraged funds at a ratio of 68.53:1 by utilizing the EZ/EC Initiative. The Five Star has maximized $400,690 of EC funds leveraging $27,460,361 additional dollars. Tribal, State, Health & Human Services, HUD, and USDA Rural Development are some of the largest contributors.
The Five Star looks forward to their ratio reaching 90:1, leveraging approximately $800,000 EC funds to about $72,482,000 outside dollars over the next six years. The creation of partnerships continues to be one of the Five Star’s biggest successes. From the poorest local community members to State, Tribal, and Federal Agencies and local, state, and federal governmental representatives, more and more people are becoming involved in the momentum and excitement the EC Initiative has created. Five Star now has a web site presence, http://www.fivestarec.org and a brochure, to assist in disseminating information and recruitment of additional volunteers.