News Photo by Crystal Nelson The Rogers City Council meets on Tuesday. The council adopted its meeting schedule for 2019 during its Dec. 18 meeting. Council will meet again on Jan. 8.

ROGERS CITY — Rogers City officials are putting the finishing touches on a plan that will allow the city to continue receiving grants from the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

City Manager Joseph Hefele told council members he hopes to submit the plan to the MEDC early next year, which would allow Rogers City to become a Redevelopment Ready Community.

Hefele said that certification is needed to continue to partner with and receive grants from the MEDC.

Hefele said the city already partners with MEDC, which offers a number of different grants and programs itself and administers federal grants. He said the city could access grants for facade improvements or infrastructure upgrades, among other things, though he named no specific projects on Tuesday.

“We need to be ready to access them if there are projects in Rogers City that we have yet determined how to fund, and then there’s a grant that comes up that would be ideal to fund it,” he said. “We need to have this done to continue to ensure we are eligible for those dollars.”

A number of documents are needed to receive the certification. Hefele told council members he has completed a capital improvement plan, public participation plan, a list of redevelopment-ready sites, and commission recruitment and education plan.

He has yet to complete a marketing promotional plan and an economic development plan.

“The next step is to actually sit down with council and go through each of them,” he said.

City Council scheduled a workshop for 9 a.m. Jan. 10 to go over the plans before they are submitted.

Rogers City would be the third community in northern Michigan to receive the certification. The cities of Alpena and Grayling are already certified as redevelopment ready.

Crystal Nelson can be reached at 989-358-5687 or cnelson@thealpenanews.com.