Aware "this may be our last chance to get this right," as City Council member Carol West put it, the Tucson area's latest stab at a regional economic development organization is carefully moving toward becoming a reality by its July 1 target date.

Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities, Inc. (TREO) - briefly called the Regional Economic Development Corporation, or RED-C - has held monthly meetings since February of its nine-member board and its interim executive director, Steve Lynn. The board is co-chaired by Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup and Pima County Board of Supervisors Chair Sharon Bronson.

Karen Thoreson, assistant Tucson city manager, gave a short update on TREO developments to the Tucson City Council April 26.

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The Board of Directors has ratified the articles of incorporation, adopted by-laws, adopting a recruitment strategy for a full-time executive director and has been working to finalize a lease for office space in the downtown Compass Bank building, 120 N. Stone Ave. The group is also looking at a proposed operating budget for fiscal year 2006 - the first official budget for the group that would feature all of the city and county funding that previously was earmarked for the various economic development organizations in the area. TREO will become the single distribution point for those funds instead of having different economic devleopment entities each make individual requests to the city and county for funding.

TREO has three standing committees - the Partner's Council, featuring senior managers and economic development professionals; the High Tech Advisory Committee, which has representatives from the Southern Arizona Tech Council and from each of the seven high-tech industry clusters; and the Small Business Advisory Committee, consisting of members of several small-business advocacy groups and members from all regional chambers of commerce.

"I think it's important that we know how we can get the business community more involved," said City Councilman Fred Ronstadt, R-Ward 6. "It is there, right in the middle of all the economic development activity, so it's vital that that particular group is very involved, because I didn't get the impression that it happened as much before."

"This may be our last chance to get this right," said Councilmember Carol West, D-Ward 2. "It's very important that we want this to succeed; but we may need to fish or cut bait on this if it doesn't work out."

TREO staff positions are expected to be filled by staffers currently at the city and county, plus some from the Greater Tucson Economic Council, which has announced it will officially close up shop as of June 30.

At this point, it is down to working out details for the full transition - most importantly will be the work of the city and county employees who will work to help TREO while remaining on the respective payrolls.

The TREO board is planning to continue meeting monthly up to the July 1 launch date.

David Woodburn may be contacted at dwoodburn@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4239.