THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 13, 1994 TAG: 9412130280
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
More than three months after the White House was to name the winners of $3 million in grants for rural communities around the country, members of a five-county regional coalition are still on the edge of their seats.
The latest word, said local applicants to be a rural Enterprise Community, is that the 30 designees will be announced late this month or in January.
``We're all just standing by very anxiously and continuing to lobby,'' said Lenora Jarvis-Mackey, president and CEO of the River City Community Development Corp. in Elizabeth City. ``We were all hoping that, you know, we'd all have a Christmas present.''
Representatives of Bertie, Hertford, Martin, Pasquotank and Tyrrell counties put together a three-inch-thick proposal in June outlining a comprehensive development plan for seven poor census tracts in the area.
The proposal calls for a program to provide hundreds of disadvantaged families with training and services they need to become self-sufficient.
Enterprise Community hopefuls originally were scheduled to learn their fate in early fall, after applications were reviewed by federal agencies and forwarded to the White House.
But the announcement has been pushed back month-by-month, extending the nail-biting period for officials who poured hours into meetings and research for the proposal.
Speculation on what has held up the process ranged from the lack of an agriculture secretary to a desire to wait for the elections to blow over, but no one could say for sure. Officials in three federal offices did not return phone calls Monday.
But locals said they are keeping close tabs on the process, and keeping their fingers crossed.
``If it's done on merit, I think we've got a really good shot,'' said Bunny Sanders, director of tourism development for the Northeastern North Carolina Economic Development Commission. Her office coordinated and wrote the application. ``We're just sort of sitting here waiting.
``You really don't have any control over it, so you just kind of have to be patient.''
Enterprise Community designations are intended to boost depressed rural areas through a $3 million social services block grant and priority status on a range of other grant and loan applications to help fill out the development strategy.
The seven areas covered in the regional application include parts of Elizabeth City, Ahoskie and Columbia. The total population covered is about 30,000, and nearly a third of the residents are in poverty.
About 20 related projects are proposed, with a total estimated price tag of nearly $50 million.
Half of that cost is for one project, a $24 million pilot sewage-treatment system that would help grow plants and could lead to a horticulture industry.
Other proposals include revitalizing area harbor towns, creating agribusiness industrial parks, developing a cultural arts program and improving health, housing and small-business development.
Applying communities that don't win the federal designation still will receive special consideration when looking to pay for their programs, Jarvis-Mackey said.
Officials say they already are working on some of their proposals, such as tourism development and entrepreneurial programs.
``I've been disappointed that it's taken so long,'' said Bill Early, director of the Hertford County Economic Development Commission. ``But we have continued to move forward. . . . It would certainly be something that would be of tremendous value to us.'' by CNB