Oconto Falls accepts grant to revive downtown business district

The outgoing executive director of the Oconto County Economic Development Corp. used his last visit to the Oconto Falls City Council to “strongly urge” the panel to accept a USDA downtown revitalization planning grant to work on reviving the city’s business district.

The council took his advice and accepted the grant in a 6-0 vote.

Paul Ehrfurth, who is due to retire from OCEDC on Sept. 1, has been working with the city for more than two years to hire a consulting firm and apply for federal grants to fund a study of a number of downtown business properties.

A Community Development Block Grant fell through, but the USDA was willing to provide $29,175 under its Downtown Revitalization Grant program — a little more than half of the estimated $53,375 the city needs for the study, City Administrator Vicki Roberts said.

Ehrfurth said the city should take the money and fund the difference.

“I’m retiring in a couple of weeks, so I can be blunt,” he said. “Of all the downtowns that I’ve interacted with — Gillett, Oconto, Oconto Falls, Suring and so on and so forth — yours needs the most work.”

The city made a mistake in 1979 when it built East Highland Avenue to create a bypass for state Highway 22 traffic through Oconto Falls, Ehrfurth said, and the grant money gives the city an opportunity to correct that error and revive the business district.

He noted that a group of business owners is very interested in helping the effort.

“It would be foolish to not take advantage of their commitment and their level of interest,” Ehrfurth said. “You’ve needed to have the work done for many, many years, and now you have an opportunity to get it done.”

Roberts said the city’s advisory Main Street Committee unanimously recommended that the council accept the USDA grant and budget the remaining $24,200 either from the city’s general fund balance or out of its American Rescue Plan Act fund allocation.

Oconto County Board Supervisor Stephanie Holman quoted fellow committee member Barb Salscheider as saying, “Your Main Street is what makes your town quaint.”

“She couldn’t have been more right in saying that,” Holman said. “Ours needs to be brought up to some kind of quaintness.”

Roberts said the council can decide in the fall whether to take the money from the fund balance or ARPA. She plans to meet with department heads to develop a request for use of the federal dollars as they work on the 2022 city budget.

In her written monthly report to the council, Roberts said Jayme Sellen has been hired as the next executive director of OCEDC.

Sellen, who currently serves as vice president of economic development and government affairs at the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce, is scheduled to start in her new role Aug. 30, Roberts said.