Frankfort city and Clinton County officials have each set aside $13,000 to enter a regional planning organization. The group of counties would approve, then fund, projects using local contributions as seed money for grants.
Frankfort Mayor Chris McBarnes says his county needs to make itself seem bigger and more populous to potential investors.
“It’s going to be very important for us moving forward, strategically, to market ourselves as a six-county region of over 100,000 workers within a 35-minute drive of over 600,000 workers in order to draw the types of jobs that we want to promote here in North Central Indiana,” McBarnes says.
As for the city, McBarnes says he has two specific goals for the area – expanding a wastewater treatment facility and adding attractions to downtown Frankfort.
“Those types of investments – they’re not cheap, they’re not inexpensive and being a smaller community, we’re going to need some help there,” McBarnes says.
The North Central Indiana Regional Planning Council comprises Cass, Clinton, Fulton, Howard, Miami and Tipton Counties.
The organization is similar to, but not connected with, the state’s Regional Cities Initiative.
