By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
As the Imagine Ellis County Committee continues to strategize the future of the area, a town hall meeting has been set in order to solicit feedback from community members as to the direction of the county moving into the future.
The town hall is scheduled from 5:30 to 8 p.m., Feb. 7, at the Hilton Garden Inn, 221 W. 43rd. A free meal for attendees is planned.
The Imagine Ellis County committee has recently become active again, after efforts were derailed by the ongoing pandemic. Originally a Strategic Doing project, the committee is made up of a diverse group of community members.
“This is the committee that was put together a large group of cross-section of the community,” said Grow Hays Executive Director Doug Williams. “Very diverse in terms of age group in terms of occupations and backgrounds, to try and take a look at where we want to be in Ellis County five, 10, 25 years from now. And we're in the input-gathering stage where we're trying to get feedback from the community. And that's what this town hall meeting is, in part, about is to get people from the community to ... tell us what they'd like to see what they think Ellis County should be."
“Really our mission is to imagine, develop and implement a collaborative strategic vision for our community and region,” said Hays Chamber President and CEO Sarah Wasinger.
The town hall will help create that vision.
“What we're trying to do is kind of more or less solicit the ideas and the needs of the community,” said committee member Ryan Benton. “We want to ask them, basic questions of what do you think the strengths of Ellis County are? What do you think, we could do better.”
While some community needs are well known, such as housing, childcare and staffing shortages, others might be slipping under the radar of groups like the chamber and Grow Hays.
“Part of me almost wants to hear something that our group hasn't even considered yet,” Benton said. “You can put 30 people in a room and come up with some of the greatest ideas. But there has to be something out in the community that somebody knows and needs to be said that hasn't been said yet. And, in all reality, I think I think that is what we're hoping to find is that there's few things that the members of Imagine Ellis County haven't thought about yet.”
For the problems and solutions already known, Williams said the meeting will help solidify ideas.
“Just what would you like to see? Do you think Ellis County or Rooks County or wherever they're (located) needs a theme park, something like that? Just to let your imagination run wild. We're kind of honing in on some things right now and trying to be a little bit more specific. OK, what can we do in our community that's going to make it a better place to live? And yes, it's going to be broad in some senses that it may include retail, it may include housing, it may include lots of different things, but we want to make sure that we're addressing those things and come up with what might be some great ideas.”
“This is everyone's chance to come to that evening and really just give feedback,” Wasinger said. “And it's not intended to be a gripe session. It's really intended to stimulate creativity and just genuine conversation as to what does Ellis County looks like and how do we get there.”
In order to garner the most ideas, attendees will initially be placed into small groups.
“We're going to ask about five to seven questions,” Benton said. “But we are going to break up into smaller groups, depending on ... how many people we end up getting, getting more conversation, getting people talking, getting the creative juices flowing that way, so that people aren't maybe timid about speaking in front of an entire room.”
And to keep the meeting moving forward, a professional facilitator from the Dane G. Hansen Foundation will run the town hall.
Alongside the town hall, the committee also has been developing online tools that will be used to share the story of Hays and Ellis County across the region.
“One of those was our leadership transformation grant for leadership training and spots through the Kansas Leadership Center,” Wasinger said. “And we also have a $10,000 grant from the Dane G. Hansen Foundation, a $50,000 grant from the Robert E. And Patricia A. Schmidt Foundation, and then a $5,000 grant from the Heartland Community Foundation. We are using that to help not only create our website, (but) there's been a series of videos that expressed how the quality of life is a very attractive place for people to live here in Ellis County.”
Using the grant funds, a survey is also planned for later on in the year to gather even more feedback from the community, and the marketing efforts are also designed to capture those that are currently looking to leave urban settings.
“There are 20 million people in the next 10 years who will migrate away from these urban areas,” Williams said. “They're looking for places to go.
“We hope it makes an impact on that,” he said. “We believe that we have an amazing community and a great place to live. We have a lot to offer, whether it be companies that might move here, whether it be the local companies that want to expand, people that want to retire here, or people that want to relocate here because they work remotely. But we have to identify the type of things that people want and see what we can do about delivering those types of things if we want to be successful in those efforts — attracting people and keeping people in our community.”
Registration is requested in order for the committee to have an accurate meal count but is not required.
Cover image courtesy Pixabay