What Is the Partnership?

What is the Shelburne Falls Area Partnership? This question causes a great deal of confusion. It is a separate group comprised of the boards of selectmen of the towns of Buckland and Shelburne and members of the board of the SFABA. The SFABA executive director, whose position was funded for several years as part of the program that established this and similar partnerships statewide, is also the program manager for the Partnership.

The following is adapted from a document available on the Web site of the State Ethics Commission. In describing a conflict-of-interest ruling, the document just happens to provide the clearest description of the Partnership program that we've found to date. The SFABA and the towns of Buckland and Shelburne applied for and received Partnership grant funding in 1993 and wrapped up the program in 1998.

The state receives from the federal government Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) monies, some of which it awarded to towns having populations of fewer than 50,000.

One of those programs was the Downtown Partnership or Downtown Revitalization Program (Program). The program's major objective was the elimination of urban slums and blight. Through the program, the state sought to involve and assist private enterprises in developing an "entity" through which they can work in partnership with their municipal governments to improve their urban environment through various activities, initiatives and projects. Municipalities could apply to the Executive Office of Community Development for initial program funding to finance the start-up costs of an entity. The EOCD referred to the cooperative working relationship between a municipality and its "Downtown Entity" as a "Downtown Partnership."

Once the Partnership was formed, the municipality could apply to EOCD for and could have been awarded up to three additional program grants in the first three years of the Partnership's operation for projects such as training; goal-setting; planning for downtown economic development; strategies for business retention, recruitment and start-ups; improvement of local regulations (zoning, permits, etc.); parking strategies; cooperative services; loans/grants for building rehabilitation (facades, signs); streetscape improvements; studies and programs in promotions and marketing; tourism development; downtown market analysis; loans for new and expanding business activities; and training and support for new businesses and entrepreneurial ventures. As the Partnership gained more experience during the 3-year period working in a Downtown Partnership relationship with its municipality, EOCD decreased the amount of funding to be allocated to the Partnership's project manager [in this case the SFABA's first executive director, Andrew Baker]. At the end of the 3-year period, EOCD cut off the Partnership funding entirely, expecting it to operate with funds raised through its own efforts.

"Among their goals in providing such funding, EOCD and the Program-grant-receiving municipalities hope and expect that the Downtown Entities will survive long-term and continue to work in Downtown Partnership relationships," noted this document, which was written in 1995. Sadly, only one such partnership of the 23 established through this program remains active: ours.