Job Creation Council Seeks Support for Network Operations Center

Dear Editor:

Below is the email I sent to the Board of Commissioners, asking them to welcome an employer with 50 high paying jobs to Garden Valley.

This is the first and best "green" job opportunity of significance we have found for Garden Valley. Our pursuit of it needs all the citizens, who want internships and hi-tech careers for the valley's children, to write letters to both the Board of County Commissioners and to Dynamis Energy, expressing their support of the Network Operations Center (NOC) location in Garden Valley. If they would copy the letters or emails to me (John Cottingham, cottinghamj@aol.com), it would be helpful. The addresses for those letters and emails are:

Lloyd Mahaffey, Chairman and CEO
Dynamis Energy Corporation
776 E. Riverside Drive
Eagle, ID 83616
Email: lloyd@dynamisenergy.com

and

Boise County Board of Commissioners
PO Box 1300
Idaho City, ID 83631
Email: tday@co.boise.id.us, jamiea@frontiernet.net, fryrobert47@gmail.com
~~~~~~~

Commissioners --

We have a very significant job creation opportunity in Garden Valley that we hope you will help us to obtain. It is absolutely critical to job creation in Garden Valley. Dynamis Energy is creating waste gasification projects around the world. There is a story on a couple of local contracts on the front page of the February 15 issue of the Idaho Statesman. You can find it on their web page at http://www.idahostatesman.com by searching for Dynamis Energy. It’s entitled, “Two plants in Idaho could turn…” Dynamis has now signed $100 million worth of contracts for that technology around the world.

Garden Valley is competing with two other cities for the Network Operations Center (NOC) that will control all of those facilities around the world. It will mean 50 hi-tech jobs to Garden Valley, a "green" employer, a significant tax base increase for the county, internships for our high school students plus jobs for them later in their lives right in Garden Valley and a customer for the sewer project the GV Job Creation/Retention Council will discuss with you separately. It can be the beginning of career opportunities in Garden Valley to provide the valley’s children an opportunity to stay with their present families and raise their own families right here. In addition, it will be the anchor tenant for a hi-tech business park in Garden Valley.

The criteria the NOC requires are sewer, water, secure Internet Protocol (IP) broadband and a secure electrical power supply. The facility cannot go down. In addition, we should provide a life style conducive to the kinds of employees they will hire. That includes a quality education system, adult education programs, cultural opportunities and extracurricular family activities.

We need a letter from the Board of County Commissioners to confirm the county's willingness and ability to discuss the following with them, as that is what the other communities are doing:
1. Emphasize the county's business friendliness for tax base growth and support for the infrastructure needed to accomplish it.
2. Display willingness to discuss tax incentives for major employers.
3. Exhibit willingness to discuss backing of infrastructure financing bonds.

On that third subject, I talked to Jerry Mason, at ICRIMP, about the Idaho Constitution's direction on public entities backing bonds. He read to me, and you can have your lawyers look at, Article 8, Section 4, which says that counties may not back bonds issued by corporations and the like. It does not say that counties cannot back bonds for sewer and water treatment districts.

Jerry tells me that there have been no judicial actions on that subject, so it is not a subject on which you cannot suggest discussions. The risk is defined by how many dependable customers the sewer/water district has committed to it. In this case, we have a bunch, the subject of another email.

Jerry also tells me it is an issue of how beneficial the project will be for the county vs. the risk the county takes on by backing the bonds. In this case, the 50 new jobs, the new property taxes from those 50 new families living in Boise County and the associated businesses that will come to Garden Valley to support the NOC make that an easy decision for me as a tax payer. You all will need to make that decision, but please do not delay long, as there are two other communities vying for the project. They are all over Dynamis with offers, as this is a truly "green" project that any community would love to welcome.

In any case, would you write a letter inviting the NOC to Garden Valley and inviting Dynamis Energy to discussions on the above three items to:

Lloyd Mahaffey, Chairman and CEO
Dynamis Energy Corporation
776 E. Riverside Drive
Eagle, ID 83616
Email: lloyd@dynamisenergy.com
Phone: (208) 938-2680

Please help Garden Valley residents and copy me on whatever letter you send. Many thanks for your help.

John Cottingham, GV Job Creation/Retention Council