Jill Schramm/MDN Jordan Nelson, a member of Minot’s economic development plan review committee, shares thoughts about the MAGIC Fund Screening Committee, which he chairs, at a meeting Friday. Listening at left is council and committee member Paul Pitner.

Does the Minot MAGIC Fund Screening Committee, which hasn’t met since September 2023, still have a role?

The Minot City Council’s Economic Development Plan Review Committee discussed the city’s relationship with Minot Area Chamber EDC, along with the organization’s responsibilities to the MAGIC Fund, at its meeting Friday.

Committee and city council member Paul Pitner questioned what the role of the screening committee is when MAGIC Fund applications are a “done deal” by the time MACEDC and city staff have worked through them.

“The heck if I know,” committee member and screening committee chairman Jordan Nelson responded. “I’ve been asking myself since the new guidelines came out, what’s the purpose of this MAGIC Fund Screening Committee other than the fact it is in the code that there would be a committee that’s appointed. But it’s like the old river channel. We’ve diverted the water around it, but we still have to exist. But now, we never meet.”

Nelson said when he was first appointed to the screening committee, MACEDC would assist applicants to assemble required documents and present requests to the committee with its recommendation.

“The first level of approval was the screening committee,” he said.

Under updated guidelines adopted by the city at the end of 2023, MACEDC became that first round of approval. Nelson said, formerly, when the screening committee declined to recommend a project, the developer still would advance to the council for a final decision. Now, projects either don’t advance after applying to MACEDC or the screening committee’s recommendation becomes a formality, he said.

“We’ve basically outsourced that process to a private organization,” Nelson said.

City Finance Director David Lakefield said MACEDC’s involvement has been to ensure applicants meet the qualifications as primary sector companies. Without that, the screening committee would find itself dealing with a number of applicants who don’t qualify. Also, should an applicant receive funding outside the requirements of state law, there could be litigation, he said.

“To some extent, there has to be the ability to filter some of those requests out before they come to the screening committee or to the city council,” he said.

The new guidelines created different buckets of money within the MAGIC Fund, of which one is primary sector development. Requests to the primary sector bucket have three rounds of filtering, City Manager Harold Stewart explained. MACEDC filters applications to ensure they meet state law and MAGIC Fund guidelines. The steering committee, consisting of community leaders and industry experts, look at it from their perspective to determine if the projects meet the goals and priorities of the community. The third filtration is the city council, which deals with the politics and community feedback, he said.

“If it passes through all three of those things, then we’ve probably done our due diligence as a community,” Stewart said.

Nelson said the application process needs to be transparent. The screening committee and council hold open meetings, but MACEDC is accountable only to its member investors. If applications fail at the MACEDC level, that information isn’t disclosed, he said.

Mark Lyman, economic developer with MACEDC, recalled only one instance in the past four years in which an applicant began the process and then backed out because it didn’t believe it would be found eligible. On the other hand, the review committee referenced Trinity Health’s grant request in late 2022 to help fund a new emergency center at its new hospital. The request advanced the council despite concerns along the way about its primary sector eligibility. The council did make a loan offer, which Trinity rejected.

Committee chairman and council member Mike Blessum said his sense is the screening committee should vet every application, regardless of MACEDC’s findings.

Blessum said he doesn’t have an appetite to change MAGIC Fund guidelines again. Instead, the focus should be on how MACEDC performs its role, he said. Although MACEDC has done a good job, the next step in the filter for applicants needs to be there in case future leadership doesn’t do its job as well, he said.

The committee plans to continue discussing its contract with MACEDC and to begin developing its recommendations to eventually send to the council.