Craig Daily Press

Craig — Darcy Trask, Craig/Moffat County Economic Development Partnership executive specialist, acknowledges the value of tourism.

She illustrated this while giving a presentation at the Moffat County Tourism Association’s monthly meeting Wednesday at the Moffat County Courthouse. Trask’s focus was discussing the EDP’s progress in their educational seminar series for local businesses.

These seminars have included forums on commercial property tax, leadership and other subjects relevant to Moffat County businesses. The county was recently designated an enhanced enterprise zone, which will be the subject of the EDP’s next seminar set for August or September.

The EDP will bring up possible tax credits for businesses that have expanded or relocated to Moffat County. Trask ranks MCTA as a major contributor to the economic growth of Moffat County.

“EDP recognizes that tourism is one of the things that brings businesses to Moffat County, and that’s why it’s so important for us to work with the MCTA,” she said.

The Wednesday meeting also involved MCTA’s evaluation of funding for upcoming summer events in the area. Organizers of these events must have their budgets approved in order to receive funding from the group.

Jackie Goodnow and Fair Coordinator Carol Haskins presented a grant request to the group on behalf of the Moffat County Fair. In discussing the planned activities of the fair including bronco riding, cage fighting and wiener-dog (dachsund) races, Haskins mentioned their plans to appeal to outside interests through posters, radio advertising and Colorado regional magazine, The Fence Post.

The fair has only recently started working with MCTA.

“Last year was the first year that we got in touch with them,” Haskins said. “Their funding helps us to do more advertising for the fair and we try to direct it towards bringing in more tourists.”

According to MCTA secretary Cindy Looper, the group must take into consideration the effectiveness of such funding when determining how much money to allocate toward the fair.

“Some things are more local and are designed for area residents,” Looper said. “It’s hard to fund things like this sometimes because, by law, it’s our job to bring in more tourists.”

Haskins aims to attract as many out-of-area residents as possible.

“It’s hard to tell whether or not we’re attracting more tourists,” she said. “We certainly hope so.”

The committee settled on $1,500 for the fair with additional discounted coupons (or press passes) to play into the deal. The fair is scheduled to run from July 26 to Aug. 9 at the Moffat County Fairgrounds.

MCTA’s next meeting will be at 3 p.m. Wednesday, July 9 in the Moffat County Courthouse conference rooms.

Andy Bockelman can be reached at (970) 875-1796