Hannah Barnett has big plans for the six-county district making up the Bootheel Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission.
Barnett, a Puxico native, was named Interim Executive Director of BRPC in January, filling the position vacated by Brent Stidham who has gone to work for the National Republican Party for Southeast Missouri. She is situated in the offices of the Commission on E. North Main Street, the former Dexter Armory building.
Barnett comes to the position well armed. She has a BS in Management with a Minor in Accounting, and in just a few weeks, she will have earned her masters degree in Public Administration from Arkansas State University. She has previously served the Ozark Foothills Regional Planning Commission as a community development specialist.
She and her husband, Will, reside back in her hometown of Puxico with their six-month old son.
One of the missions of Barnett is to better inform the public the task of her office.
"We have a focus on economic development, so we focus on bringing industry into the six counties we serve," Barnett explains.
Those counties include Dunklin, Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Scott and Stoddard.
"We also work to improve the infrastructure within those counties," she adds. "We are here to assist our communities. Many do not have the capacity to write grants, and so those communities pay membership dues to us, and we write those grants for them. We submit those grants for the communities"
The Commission serves not only the cities within the six counties mentioned, but the counties themselves as well. The grants are written to agencies that include the Department of Economic Development (DED), Delta Regional Authority, Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Economic Development Administration (EDA).
The Dexter BRPC facility includes a staff of seven, overseen by Barnett. Four are part time, and three are part time employees. That staff includes retired teacher, Debbie McKay, with whom Barnett shares the grant writing duties.
"My primary goal is to increase the amount of Community Development Block Grants (CBGs). I plan to increase the amount that we submit, because we receive the administration money on those grants, and that is our lifeline -- our life support -- and so we need to work to increase that."
The funding, Barnett explains, begins with HUD, which then filters money down to the Department of Economic Development (DED). That department then presents different grant opportunities for the communities to submit.
Barnett says one of her most significant challenges in her new post is to have communities understand the importance of the BRPC and their role within their communities.
"We're here to help them," she says, "and I want to make sure they understand that and know what we offer them."
Barnett says that's a challenge the BRPC faces because many within the communities of the six counties they serve are not aware of their services.
"That's a problem," she says. "I see a challenge in making certain they learn what is available. There are street projects, water projects, drainage and wastewater projects that they need to be made aware of."