Keeping up the Vision with VisionWest
By Jerry W. Kram
It’s been a long three years, according to Shirley Brentup, executive director of the VisionWest Consortium.
That’s how long the group of western counties, city and Fort Berthold Reservation segments have been working on a plan to help communities in Western North Dakota coped with the flood of impacts that have accompanied the Bakken Oil Boom. The consortium held one of its final regular meetings in Parshall last week to discuss how to support the plan and carry on the work of the group when its funding ends next next month.
Brentup said that as a project funded by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the consortium as a group cannot do any lobbying for its proposals at the Legislature. However, it has shared its plan with the Legislative Council and provided copies to members of the Legislature. She said it is up to the individual members of the consortium to work with their legislators to support individual bills.
"The plan itself has shown that there is a group in western North Dakota that has identified their needs and made them known," Brentup said. "The most important thing is our members represent themselves as a region. It’s not just me asking, but that we are here as a group. We are a sparsely populated region so we have to go in as a group."
