County works on economic development

In 2016, when Cindy Thompson ran for her present position as Vernon County northern district commissioner, one issue she campaigned on was economic development.

“Clearly, doing nothing about this is not working; we must be deliberate, we need a plan,” said Thompson.

In a late morning interview on Wednesday, Thompson took time to outline the first steps the county has taken towards developing just such a plan.

“When I was running, I attended a Nevada city council meeting, and that night, a representative from Kansas City Power and Light was there giving a presentation about economic development. That’s when I first realized they could be a resource,” said Thompson.

She said, as a regulated utility in Missouri, they are mandated to give back to their communities in a variety of ways which is why KCP&L has an economic development department.

“While this is part of their regulated responsibilities, it’s pretty simple to see that when we’re successful — when existing businesses expand or new ones come in — they’re even more successful,” said Thompson. “That’s a win-win and so they are gladly partnering with us on this.”

In early 2017, shortly after Thompson began her work as commissioner, she contacted the utility’s economic development department to meet with the Vernon County commission.

“They volunteered to set up an informal meeting, bringing in Janet Ady, who is president of the consulting firm, Ady Advantage, out of Madison, Wis., to Nevada, at their expense,” related Thompson. “She was in Missouri for another activity.”

The informal two-hour meeting, held on April 25, included Ady, Thompson, two representatives from KCP&L, Nevada City Manager JD Kehrman and three others. Kelly Ast of Healthy Nevada, Dennis Alt, an area farmer/rancher and Chris Thompson, president of West Central Community Action Agency.

Ady advised joining the economic group, Joplin Regional Partnership, for marketing reasons.

“She said we got to get on the map,” said Thompson. “And we need to have a long-term plan because we have no economic plan.”

Shortly thereafter, Joplin Regional Partnership made a presentation in the commissioners’ office with Kehrman on hand.

The city and county each had earmarked funds as their match while going after a grant to fund a full-time city-county economic developer; they did not receive the grant.

“We talked with the city and mutually decided it might be best if they spent the money they had set aside for the economic developer on Joplin Regional while we would use ours to work with KCP&L and Ady Advantage and that way maximize our efforts for this area,” explained Thompson.

To that end, Ady agreed to put together a proposal for services, to be presented to the county commission, towards the creation of a long-range economic development plan.

“When we got that proposal back from Ady, it was a little expensive,” said Thompson. “So we asked, what can Joplin Regional do for us? Through the city’s membership, we wanted to find out if they could help us develop a plan.”

Joplin Regional conducted a workshop in Nevada on Aug. 31 with about 15 community leaders in attendance. It was entitled, “What does success look like in the city of Nevada and Vernon County?”

Said Thompson, “A lot of great ideas came of out of that but Joplin Regional said they were not the ones to put together our plan.”

Such a plan would include not only the strategies and actions needed for the city and county to attract, retain and grow businesses here but would also strive to ensure there is a trained workforce with the skills employers seek.

“Of course we need to have a variety of jobs but most of the ones that pay better require knowledge and skills which means we also need to ensure we have a skilled workforce,” added Thompson.

Once a plan has been created, Joplin Regional Partnership would help market the city and county.

Armed with suggestions from that meeting, Thompson then went back to Ady Advantage, who revised its original proposal, enabling the production of an economic plan with the cost divided between the commission and KCP&L.

Work towards this plan begins on Jan. 30 and 31 as Ady conducts interviews to gain insight various area entities including community service, government, agriculture, education, real estate, finance, health, other employers big and small along with a representative each from West Central, Kaysinger Basin Regional Planning Commission and the Nevada/Vernon County Chamber of Commerce.

Asked about counties served by Kaysinger who have an employee working on economic development for that county and its municipalities, Thompson said the grants for this are few, very competitive and so far, Vernon County’s applications have been denied.

Just as a lengthy series of grant proposals for work on Katy Allen Lake were turned down but the commission achieved its goals by other means, so here as well, Thompson said the commission is pressing ahead by other means.

“But what I want to know is, even if we’d get one of those grants, what would we have that economic developer do?” asked Thompson.

She said no matter what happens next, what is first needed is to gather and listen to people and try to create a shared vision of what both city and county wants in economic development.

Besides trained workers and a company needing them, the plan would address creating an incentive plan for businesses to come here, an examination of infrastructure issues such as utilities, water and sewer.

“Outside of Nevada, in the county, to where would a good sized business locate?” asked Thompson.

Forty people will be involved in the two-day process. In the morning of Jan. 30, interviewers will speak with 10 pairs of people while in the afternoon, larger focus groups will involve a further 20 individuals. On Jan. 31, Ady will present an aggregate of the ideas gleaned from the interviews.

After this, said Thompson, “Ady will review the information gained with Joplin Regional, which included different people, and — over the next couple of months — help us develop a plan so we can see the big picture.”

From there, the commission will decide if the city and county can develop their own actions steps or if further work needs to be done before turning this over to Joplin Regional Partnership.

In Missouri, Ady Advantage is currently working with the city of Trenton and Gundy County and, in conjunction with the Missouri Partnership, recently completed a community competitiveness assessment program in six counties.

Explained Thompson, “The Missouri Partnership is a public-private entity based in Jefferson City. If a business is looking to come into Missouri, they’re the ones you generally go through.”

The northern district commissioner readily acknowledged similar work was done in preparation for what is commonly referred to as the “industrial spec building” located north of Nevada.

“But there was no follow through,” said Thompson. “We’re not going to go to all this trouble and then just drop the ball; we’re going to work on this for the long term. We have no illusions; we know this won’t be easy but we owe it to our children and grandchildren to work at this.”