On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the upcoming Imagine Ellis County committee town hall.
Transcript
James Bell
The Imagine Ellis County committee has set up a town hall to solicit community feedback, Grow Hays executive director, Doug Williams stops by to talk to us about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
We're having this meeting on February 7, at the Hilton Garden Inn, from 530 to 8 pm. And it's a town hall meeting that's put on by our Imagine Ellis County committee. And this is the committee that was put together a large group of cross-section of the community, 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 510 25 years from now. And we're in the input gathering state where we're trying to get feedback from the community. And that's what this town hall meeting is part about is to get people from the community to come to this event and tell us what they'd like to see what they think Ellis County should be.
James Bell
Yeah, and you know, this is kind of what we talked about quite a bit the economic development here in Ellis County. But as the committee starts firing up and starts having events like this, really what kind of feedback are you looking for? I mean, are you wanting to know what we're looking for in retail, what kind of sectors we need to build on? Or is it really just open to whatever you think, Ellis County might be in 20 years 30.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
It's kind of all of the above, we initially brought in the larger employers' business in the business community, and have them each give five minutes on what their strategic plan is, and where they're headed, and what their challenges are. And, and we've gone through that we've heard from them, there are some recurring themes, and all of those things. And I'm sure there'll be some recurring themes and from the public in general. But we're kind of taking this to this next step where we want to hear from the general public, what they would like to see how they feel about things. And it could be retail for some it could be, you know, better-paying jobs for others. And the ones we hear time and again, you know, housing, and childcare, and workforce, and all of those kinds of things. But we don't have any preconceived notions about where this might lead and what people might come up with. We're just eager to get input. And that's what it's all about.
James Bell
And I understand, you know, as little incentive for people maybe to go if you want to share an idea, but try game ideas, not that great. Can we give away some free food right?
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
To feed everybody? Does that always hopefully helps a little bit, get people to come and participate? So hopefully, that increases attendance and people come and give us their thoughts. Yeah, you know, I think we want to keep it positive, but we're not we want to look at what some of our our weaknesses might be as well, I think in the community, because we know we have some every community does. But we really need people are to participate. This summer, we're going to do a community survey that we're going to send out the docking Institute has been contracted to do a community survey, asking some specific questions of as many participants as they can get, as to, you know, some of the things that people would like to see what they would like to what they would like Ellis County to look like in the future.
James Bell
Doug, I'm curious, do you know when the last time that something like this was either attempted or done in haste? I know that the Imagine Ellis County committee has been around for a couple years now. But what kind of got derailed with COVID. But previous to that, as there have been similar efforts?
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Well, this, this committee comes out of the strategic doing process, which is a process that the Hansen Foundation has supported across western Kansas, where they have had, they got a facilitator who comes in and hosts a meeting like this, and lots of ideas come out of that this is this Imagine Ellis County group came out of that strategic doing initiative. And it's it's similar in what it does this just bores down into more specifics, you know, they imagine or the strategic doing sessions are really broad-based, you know, nothing's off the table, nothing. You know, just what would you like to see, you know, do you think Ellis County or rooks, county or wherever they're holding needs, needs a theme park, you know, 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. Okay, 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 find, you know, come up with some what might be some great ideas. So I would say that to answer your question that Strategic Soing was kind of the first event that I'm aware of, and that was probably three or four years ago. And this has kind of been the ongoing effort from that initial event.
James Bell
Okay. You know, in the economic development word world, I'm kind of curious how important our strategic sessions like this, because I think of other cities that, you know, have seen like a pretty good explosive growth over the last few years where Hayes's relatively stagnant in its growth and the county in their region, I should say, are losing people. So they're not even seeing growth. Does this really make an impact on that? Or is this just a kind of cherry on top?
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Well, we hope it makes an impact on that. I mean, we're, 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, or people that want to retire here, 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 type of things. If we want to be successful in those efforts, and in attracting people and keeping people in our community.
James Bell
And as we've talked about in the past, this time, right now, there's so much urban fly, people are looking for, hey, cities, like Hayes to move to. And if we can get everybody involved and start to develop those ideas, we could see some potential economic development in a really big way in the next few years. Right?
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
I think we can I mean, I've read different statistics. One of them is that there's 20 million people in the next 10 years will migrate away from these urban areas. They're looking for places to go. If you watched, there was an episode on 60 minutes last week, and a lady named Karen Kimbrough, who was the chief financial officer, chief economist for LinkedIn, which is the largest job hunting site, that there is online. She said pre-pandemic, one in 67, of the jobs they had posted, was for remote workers. Today, it's one in seven. Wow, that's a huge transformation of the workplace transferring to knowing that they have to accommodate people in different ways. So one in seven jobs now on LinkedIn is, for a remote worker, they'll let you work from anywhere you want to work. And that's huge. And so as these people look to flee the urban areas, as you said, and find a different type of life. We have to look as a community, what do we have to offer because we're in the competition, and they can go anywhere, right? They have the skills, they now can work remotely, so they can choose where they live? Well, how do we make sure that they choose here, at least some of them, obviously, we don't want 20 million, but some of them are some share of them are willing to come here. And that's why things like housing, that's why things like schools, that's like things like safe communities and activities in the community and, and that type of thing make a huge difference. And so part of our job within grow Hays as economic development organization, but also within this Imagine Ellis County committee is to identify the things that we need to put in place for this community to be able to attract those people because as I say, all the time, you know, I have lots of people say I like hate dislike it is we want to stay the same. And my response to that is we have to grow to stay the same, because our region is losing people. And so we have to increase in population, just to stay the way we are much less to grow and have more activities and more choices with retail or whatever it might be.
James Bell
Yeah. And to dig a little bit deeper into that. Something that I hear pretty frequently is is the pull factor in Ellis County, or I don't know, maybe it's in Hayes, but it's a 1.7 1.8, I believe, which means that for every dollar spent here, we're getting point eight from outside of the community.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
That's correct. We're typically in the top three in the state, the county or pull factor, and then Hayes's about the same. And that's important, but we're we're slipping a little bit in that area, because other areas have done a better job of developing retail, and we have some shortcomings in that area. So we've got to do better. But our pull factor is still critically important. And we're still ranked very high. And but we've got to have, you know, as our as our region, our trade area shrinks, we've got to make it up someplace or will not have that typo factor for very much longer.
James Bell
Yeah. And you know, the other piece of this on the remote work that I think about is, you know, unlike any other employer, if you're employed in Ellis County and you spend that money in Ellis County, that movie's just or money is just circling around. But if you're employed by Amazon, let's say, and living in Ellis County, you're getting money from other places and bringing that into the community. And as for my understanding, that is just going to be vital going on to the next 10/20 years.
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Sure, we want to we're an exporter, if we can get those kind of people, we're exporting labor. Basically, we're bringing in money from the outside. These people are buying homes, they're buying cars are buying groceries, they're buying appliances, and everything else. And they typically have great jobs and make a good salary. So that's exactly the type of people we want coming into our community. So it's critical that we identify what's important to them, and then try and meet those requirements.
James Bell
Yeah, you know, I'm curious if along with the input from the local community, is there any effort with this Imagine Ellis County committee to get that feedback from people say, from Denver, or the front range that are looking to move into a more rural setting?
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Well, there is part of our marketing initiative. And we were fortunate to receive a grant from the Schmidt foundation to do some marketing, and part of that is going to be specifically targeting people on the eastern slope of Colorado, we, we believe that's fertile ground for people looking to relocate. And so we've got some marketing efforts, we've created some quality of life videos about what it's like to live in Ellis County, not only in Hays, but also in Allison Victoria, the smaller communities around the county, and to try and show them that we have a great quality of life here. We have lots going on, and we have a great place to live. And so but that's all great, but it's not if they don't know it. So we've got to let them know what it is. And that's what these videos and other methods of advertising are being produced to get to these people and help them understand the quality of life that we do have here.
James Bell
Absolutely. Well, Doug, I tell you, we've got just about a minute left. Anything else on this that he thought you want to share?
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
Well, I just I hope everybody you know, as many people as possible come out, we are going to feed you. It runs from 530 till eight o'clock at the Hilton Garden Inn on February 7. We will kind of go over what we've done so far. And then we're going to just kind of open it up to people and get their input we want input. We don't have any. As I said, we really don't have any preconceived notions. We have some recurring themes that we continue to hear and we know about but we know there's some things that people have on their minds that we're not seeing. So we're eager to get good representation out and tell us what they think. Very good
James Bell
Free to attend but you are asking for registration in advance right? Just say of a meal count, right?
Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams
We would like you to register ahead of time. If you can't get that done and at the last minute find out you can come out, go ahead and come out. But if you can register that be great. You can do so on our Facebook page, the Imagine Ellis County Facebook page, call our office, email us, however, you want to do it but we look forward to having a big crowd.