Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Tom Hudson’s back on the job

Ketchum hires consultant to write economic-development plan

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By TREVON MILLIARD
Express Staff Writer

Tom Hudson

Tom Hudson, one of the key creators behind Ketchum's downtown master plan, the Urban Renewal Agency and Ketchum Community Development Corp., is returning to town.

On Monday, the Ketchum City Council unanimously approved hiring Hudson, principal of planning, urban design and sustainable development for Seattle consulting firm CollinsWoerman. Hudson will rewrite the economic-development chapter of the city's 10-year-old comprehensive plan. The work will take five months and cost at most $50,000. The council has agreed the entire plan needs to be updated, but said this topic is the most pressing and needs to come first.

Better yet, Councilman Larry Helzel said, Hudson won't just create a plan of what the city would like to do to improve its economy—he will also develop an action plan laying out who will do what and how.

"To me, this is critically important," Helzel said, adding that the action plan—created by neither city staff nor a local nonprofit—would allow objective coordination of efforts between economic-development nonprofit groups such as Sustain Blaine's Economic Development Corp. and the Ketchum CDC's Economic Development Team.

Trevon Milliard: tmilliard@mtexpress.com

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