By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — If all goes according to plan, residents in Dunn County could have the advantage of a program similar to “Home Sweet Menomonie.”
Home Sweet Menomonie is a program that provides downpayment assistance for people to buy a house in Menomonie, said Eric Turner, executive director of the Dunn County Economic Development Corporation, at the Colfax Village Board’s March 11 meeting.
Turner spoke to the village board during the public comments portion of the meeting.
Home Sweet Menomonie provides a zero percent interest loan of $10,000 paid back at $85 per month over ten years, Turner said.
At the end of nine years, if the homeowner can provide receipts showing improvements were made to the house, the tenth year of payments can be forgiven, he said.
The program does not have any income restrictions, and the only requirement for Home Sweet Menomonie is that the person is employed by a business included on a list of participating businesses, Turner said.
People come to Dunn County to work, and they buy gasoline and lunch, but they do not put down roots, he said.
Employers are looking for talent to hire, and the people the businesses hire need places to live, Turner said.
“We have some gorgeous areas in Dunn County,” he said.
If people live in the place where they work, their children go to school in the local community, and then the children are more likely to stay as well, Turner said.
A program to provide downpayment assistance to buy a house also might encourage people who go to college or technical school in the area to stay in the area, he said.
“We have a great quality of life here,” Turner said.
The plan is to have $1 million pledged by 2020, and so far, $750,000 has been pledged, he said.
The idea of creating a similar program to Home Sweet Menomonie was rolled out at the Dunn County Economic Development Corporation’s annual meeting January 21, Turner said.
“Young people graduate, but they don’t stay,” said Gary Stene, village president.
Stene also serves on the Board of Directors for the Dunn County Economic Development Corporation as the representative for Colfax.
Stene is not running for re-election in April for the Colfax Village Board, but he will continue serving on the Dunn County Economic Development Corporation as the representative for the Dunn County Board.
A program like this would help make buying a house more affordable so people who work in Dunn County put down roots, Stene said.
“It creates an incentive to stay here,” he said.
If the program goes county-wide, Colfax has a number of businesses that employ people. Timber Technologies is one example, Turner said.
Tom Niska, co-owner of Timber Technologies, attended the village board meeting on another matter related to Timber Tech’s planned expansion.
Timber Tech could tap in with other companies in the county and the Dunn County Economic Development Corporation, Turner said.
Dunn County Economic Development is here to help all in Dunn County, Turner said.
Broadband
Dunn County has received a “Telecommuter Forward” designation, and in areas with sufficient broadband for Internet access, people are able to telecommute instead of driving to work, Turner said.
Turner said his wife worked for a corporation in Eau Claire and then became a regional manager in the Twin Cities Metro area. When he was in the hospital, Turner said his wife was able to telecommute.
Dunn County is working on a Broadband Forward designation now, which would help open more doors to improving broadband in the county, he said.
AT&T and CenturyLink have received federal grants to install fiber optic cable, but so far, there does not seem to be much progress, and they are only promising wireless and not fiber, Turner said.
Mosaic Telecom (Chibardun Telephone Cooperative), 24-7 Telcom (West Wisconsin Telcom), and Ntec (Nelson Communications Cooperative) are installing fiber optic cable and are working on expanding out into other areas, Turner said.
Fiber optic is essential for communications for emergency services and healthcare providers, he said.
Broadband in the village of Colfax is good, but in the rural areas, “it’s not so good,” Stene said.
According to real estate agents on the DCEDC Board of Directors, when people are looking for a house to buy, if there is no broadband, they may not want the house, and property values are affected by not having broadband, he said.
The bigger Internet providers do not seem very interested in providing better service to the rural areas, Stene noted.
