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 In attendance at the Friday meeting were Alliance Council members
Tom O’Donohue, Greg Basford, Frank Adubato, Jean Bruner-Jachino, and
freshman member Keith Snyder. Sal Pollice was unable to attend.
The Alliance, or LCA, straight out of the box and for the past 12
months has faced many nay-sayers and skeptics who don’t believe any
good can come from such an organization in Logan County. But even
before the announcement of the first board of directors in late
January 2015, it seemed that the organization was destined to have
“trouble” along the way in getting the community to buy into the
purpose and need for the organization.
The LCA is the final product of work that began in 2014 by the
Unified Organizations Committee. The UOC consisted of members from
the Logan County Board, Lincoln City Council, Abraham Lincoln
Tourism Bureau of Logan County, Lincoln/Logan County Chamber of
Commerce, Main Street Lincoln, and the Lincoln and Logan County
Development Partnership.
 The goal was to bring these six groups together under one umbrella
organization so that there could be a coordinated effort to serve
the citizens of the entire county with the hopes of:
• Making the county more prosperous through job growth, business
growth and other economic development efforts.
• To draw people to the downtown area, both local and visitors,
through an active and attractive downtown landscape filled with
healthy store-front businesses.
• To better promote the county as a tourist destination through the
promotion of all the tourism assets including Abraham Lincoln, Route
66, and the local festivals.
At first, if felt like a great plan with many participants. But as
time went on a few of those participants became disgruntled. The
problem came when it was outlined during an organizational meeting,
that the board of directors would be selected using ‘weighted
votes.”
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The proposal was to give each of the six entities multiple votes based on their
financial investment in the new organization. Those voters would constitute 75
percent of the roll call. The last 25 percent was to be made up of votes from
Logan County municipalities that were not currently participating in the UOC.
It was anticipated that cash assets from each of the six entities would go into
the new organization. Because the Chamber would be contributing the largest
number of dollars, they were to be given the largest number of votes.
The cash and vote distribution were as follows:
Chamber - $440,000 – 21 votes
Tourism - $200,000 – 9 votes
Main Street - $15,000 – 1 vote
Development Partnership - $35,000 – 2 votes
City of Lincoln - $60,000 – 5 votes
Logan County Board - $30,000 – 2 votes
Soon after this voting process was announced, the controversy began. Many
believed that there could not be a fair and unbiased vote for the board of
directors when the Chamber held 56 percent of the vote.
In the end, this methodology may have been the primary contributing factor for
the Logan County Board and the Development Partnership dropping out of the
Alliance, before it was even formed.
[Nila Smith]
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