The Mower County Board of Commissioners narrowly approved a $5,000 request from Vision 2020’s request during the board’s Tuesday meeting.

Commissioners voted 3-2, with chairman Tony Bennett and Tim Gabrielson dissenting, to give $5,000 to Vision 2020 this year for economic development expenses. Gabrielson said he wasn’t comfortable with giving Vision 2020 money for anything other than waterways projects and Bennett said he was initially on the fence about the request, but ultimately voted against the project as a sign that the community improvement initiative should carefully choose its funding requests as the county board likely won’t be able to fund all forthcoming projects over the next few years.

“I’m not necessarily opposed to any requests,” Bennett said.

Vision 2020 Director of Vision Creation Laura Helle told the board the money would be used for economic development purposes within the county.

In other news, the county:

—Named Dr. Vijay Chawla of Mayo Clinic Health System in Austin as the new Mower County public health medical consultant. Chawla replaces the late Dr. Richard Schindler, who passed away Oct. 18. The county board gave its condolences to Schindler’s family during the meeting.