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• <br /> communities, since the competition's sites have to sell for a specified price in <br /> order to cover their costs. Milaca has the flexibility to be proactive on the land <br /> pricing for particular projects. <br /> Utility availability and costs <br /> East Central Energy(ECE)provides electric service to the city. As a cooperative, <br /> ECE can provide financial assistance to businesses and the city of Milaca to assist <br /> in economic development efforts. Communities within the seven county <br /> metropolitan area are served by investor owned utilities that can not provide funds <br /> to a project. <br /> Combined, the five opportunities listed will form the framework for Milaca's economic <br /> development goals and strategies. The essence of which will be discussed in Section V. <br /> As part of the evaluation, the EDC identified eleven weaknesses. None of the <br /> characteristics defined as a weakness was perceived as a threat to community growth and <br /> development. The eleven weaknesses can be divided into three categories: housing, <br /> workforce, and goods and services. <br /> • In the housing arena the availability of Executive level and Rental Apartments were <br /> identified as lacking in the community. EDC members felt that the existing town home <br /> supply was meeting the community's rental need. As for the Executive housing, Milaca <br /> will not likely attract this type of housing until a larger commercial base is available to <br /> residents. <br /> Workforce issues centered on a perceived deficiency in technical, professional and <br /> managerial workers. However, data from the 2000 Census indicates that 31% of Milaca <br /> residents would categorize themselves as having Management, Professional and Related <br /> Occupations. The next highest percentage, 22.9 % are in Production and Transportation. <br /> Interestingly, the industries residents are employed in represent almost the same <br /> percentage breakdown. Education, health, and social services represent 29.2 percent of <br /> the population (closely matching the 31%who categorized themselves as Professionals <br /> and Managers) and Manufacturing 18.7 percent (again a match to the percentage that are <br /> involved in Production Industries) . Given the information provided by the Census, it can <br /> be concluded that Milaca has a large segment of its population in service industries. The <br /> community does not have a significant portion of its population involved in higher skill <br /> technical jobs. <br /> Goods and services were identified as scarce in the city. The availability of a hotel and <br /> quality restaurants were listed as weakness, along with lack of retail stores and <br /> commercial development. Little concern was expressed over this weakness since the <br /> consensus was that retail development follows population and industry growth. EDC <br /> 0 members felt that this type of development would happen when the time is right. <br /> Barsness Consulting Services Page 5 12/8/2005 <br />