In a vote 5-0, the Escambia County (Fla.) Board of Commissioners approved a proposal to spend the Fiscal Year 2018 $55,000 economic development funds in County Commissioner Stephen Barry's discretionary funds in Century with the online news website NorthEscambia.com at its Thursday, July 18 meeting.
The $55,000 had to be used before Sept. 1, 2019, the end of Fiscal Year 2019, for economic development in the Century area, which includes Walnut Hill, McDavid and Molino. Barry designated the money to be used to gain jobs and business growth in the Century area.
Of the funds, $50,000 will go to NorthEscambia.com, to be paid in two installments of $25,000 in September and $25,000 in December of 2019 for advertising packages promoting goods and/or services offered by each business. The remaining $5,000 will be used by the Century Area Chamber of Commerce to give one-year memberships to 50 qualified area businesses.
To the 50 chosen qualified businesses, Northescambia.com will offer a $1,000 ad package that will feature a one-time story of up to 400 words and six pictures highlighting each business, which will run once and then be added to a common page or link. Smaller ads for each business will run an equal number of times from as early as Aug. 1 to Nov. 1, 2019. An ad promoting the chamber will run across the bottom of the ads also.
A committee designated by the Century Area Chamber of Commerce met with William Reynolds of NorthEscambia.com to determine the criteria to qualify businesses for chamber membership. Applications for businesses interested in participating are available online at NorthEscambia.com.
“Being a business person myself, to be able to get advertisement right now in a small town, is pretty significant, with that many hits,” said Chamber President Mary Hudson. “The chamber is about local businesses, and that's what we are supposed to be working on, that's a good thing. This is a great opportunity for all our businesses in our area to prosper.”
