Bingham Development Corp. and Grow Idaho Falls Inc. set a media event on Monday, and the smart money is that they’ll announce a plan to join forces.

    Ever since Bannock Development Corp. announced in December that it would not merge with Bingham Development and Grow Idaho Falls to form a regional economic development organization, supporters of the regional-approach to wooing businesses have said that their plan would move forward regardless.

    On Monday, we firmly expect that will come to fruition.

    Even back in December, officials with Bingham Development and Grow Idaho Falls said their groups would eventually merge into a new organization, leaving Bannock Development to go it alone.

    It’s believed that this new regional organization will work to bring companies to Bingham, Bonneville and even Bannock counties. It’s left to be seen if Bannock Development will see the new group as competition or a helping hand.

    The debate over whether Bannock Development should join the regional effort heated up last year. And it took the political power of the mayors of both Pocatello and Chubbuck, as well as all three Bannock County commissioners, to essentially keep Bannock Development from joining.

    It’s anyone’s guess at this point whether a combined Bingham Development/Grow Idaho Falls will result in more economic development successes than what Bannock Development can achieve.

    But it might settle questions about which approach works best to attract companies to our region.

    The one thing that Bingham Development, Grow Idaho Falls and Bannock Development would all agree on is that our neck of the woods needs more economic development.

    No one is satisfied with local wages and too many of our best and brightest young people leave Eastern Idaho. Our population is at best stagnant and we still struggle to recover from the impact of the Great Recession.

    Family sustaining jobs are very tough to come by in Eastern Idaho. That’s why many of our business leaders have pushed the regional approach to economic development. Their feeling is that what we do now doesn’t work well enough. And we can’t continue to do the same things as far as economic development is concerned and expect different results.

    Proponents of the regional approach say that presenting Eastern Idaho as a single region with a large population and multiple institutions of higher learning, as well as the Idaho National Laboratory, looks much more appealing to prospective businesses.

    Bannock Development didn’t buy into the regional thought that a win for Idaho Falls or Blackfoot is a win for Pocatello. There was a feeling among many Bannock County leaders that the new group would be great for Bonneville and Bingham counties, but would be lousy in terms of results for Pocatello and Chubbuck.

    There were definitely some trust issues among Bannock Development supporters about whether a regional economic development group would treat the three counties equally and fairly.

    Economic development results over the next few years will determine which method of attracting businesses and creating jobs works best. 

    If the new regional economic development organization proves highly successful, Bannock Development and its supporters will certainly take notice and perhaps come knocking on the new group’s door to ask for membership.

    If the opposite happens, we can all expect that this new approach to economic development here in Eastern Idaho will be short-lived, especially if Bannock Development starts racking up more accomplishments than the new group. 

    Future successes and failures will surely show our region the correct path forward.