Magic Valley Cities and SIEDO Get International Recognition

TWIN FALLS, ID (PRESS RELEASE) –  Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization (SIEDO), and the Cities of Twin Falls, Jerome and Burley have received the Community Partnership Program Excellence Award from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA).  Each were honored recently with the award at ICMA’s Annual Conference in Missouri.

ICMA’s Community Partnership Award recognizes programs or processes that demonstrate innovation, excellence and success in multi-participant involvement between local government and other entities to improve the quality of life for residents or provide more efficient and effective services.

“We congratulate the recipients of our 2016 Program Excellence Awards and the administrators and managers who lead them,” said ICMA executive director Bob O’Neill. “The communities and men and women recognized this year set the standard for innovation, effectiveness, and creativity. We thank them for their commitment to improving the lives of the constituents they serve every day.”

This award recognized the foresight of Twin Falls, Jerome and later Burley to develop and support, along with other entities, a regional economic development organization – SIEDO.

“This award illustrates the benefit of communities collaborating together, especially in the highly competitive field of economic development,” said Travis Rothweiler, Twin Falls City Manager, ICMA-CM. “The City of Twin Falls has enjoyed significant success for the past several years, and that is due in large part to the relationships were are able to create with our partners.”

Southern Idaho is one of the few regions in the country that works collaboratively in its economic development efforts.  This region-wide partnership has proved to be appreciated by site selectors and business recruiters, getting support and assets of the whole region rather than individually by community.

This regionalism has paid off substantially:  Southern Idaho is the smallest and only the 4^th region in the U.S. to receive national recognition from the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2015 as a Federal Manufacturing Community in the food category for the region’s extensive food production, processing and science cluster; and since the establishment of SIEDO in 2001, over 38 new and existing businesses have announced capital investments exceeding $1 billion to the region and the creation of well over 5,000 direct and indirect jobs.

SOURCE: Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization