In April 2023, Island County, the Town of Coupeville, and the Cities of Langley and Oak Harbor voted to cost-share the development of a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) for Island County. The EDC was selected to oversee the process. The project was managed by Jennifer Noveck, Ph.D.
A CEDS is a long-term, consensus-driven, local planning document that intends to guide economic development throughout a region or county. The Economic Development Administration (EDA) manages and sets the content guidelines and requirements for the CEDS process and document.
As part of this process and per EDA guidelines, a CEDS Review Committee was established. The Review Committee met a total of eight times between June 2023 and May 2024.
Island County CEDS 2024-2028 Process Timeline
The development of the Island County CEDS was planned to run for approximately 18 months from April 2023 – September 2024. Incredibly, the EDC and managing consultant completed the project two months early and within budget.
The final Island County CEDS 2024-2028 was unanimously approved by Resolution C-25-24 by the Island County Board of Commissioners on July 2, 2024, making Island County jurisdictions and public agencies eligible to apply for EDA grant funding.
Stakeholder Engagement and Public Comment Period
A critical part of the CEDS process was stakeholder engagement.
The first opportunity for public feedback and input was a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) survey to gauge the priorities and challenges related to economic development among businesses and the community in Island County. The survey was open May 1-October 23, 2023. Additional targeted outreach and interviews with key stakeholders was conducted August 1, 2023 - March 15, 2024. There was also a 30 day public comment period for the Island County CEDS 2024-2028 draft, which ran from April 15, 2024 until Friday, May 17, 2024 at 5pm PST.
Read more about stakeholder engagement and public comments in Section Section 2: SWOT Analysis and Asset Mapping and Appendices 2-5 and 7.
What’s Next?
Per the Island County CEDS 2024-2028 Section 4: Evaluation Framework (p. 62-64), Island County government intends to fund a third party monitor to evaluate progress an on annual and quarterly basis.
After this action has been taken and a third party has been funded to do evaluation work, progress will be monitored in several ways:
- An annual progress report
- An annual Review Committee meeting
- An annual update of the CEDS project list
- A quarterly review schedule for all listed partners
- A quarterly meeting to discuss deliverables
Comments or Questions?
Check out our CEDS FAQs page for more information or email Jennifer Noveck at ceds@edcislandcounty.org
This project was generously funded by:
