On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the hiring of a director of business development.   Transcript: EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.   James Bell  Grow Hays has recently expanded by one more team member in order to help continue on in their mission. 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  An interesting year with adding people.   James Bell  Yeah, maybe we should talk about that first before we talk about the new new hire because you do have a new hire from a wider No, it was it about six months ago or so you brought on David King and   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Queen joined us January 3, this year, director of business recruitment and retention and spend a great job has jumped right in. And he wrote the grant for the microfactory that we got. He's got all kinds of I say all kinds, but he's got a lot of prospects he's working on in terms of organizations, companies that may be looking to expand and Hayes and so we're in Ellis County. And so he's doing great, but we still had some additional needs. And that leads us to where we are today.   James Bell  Very cool. Very cool. Yeah, I gotta say this about David, before we move on to the new guy. Immediately, they have seen him around, I see him everywhere. He says like, it's like, I think he may be sometimes he's following me because it seems like every event I'm at, he's also there, and participating, communicating and, and just being I think it really good representative of the organization.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, actually is following you, James. So you bear watching. But now, he has been very active, he's getting out into community. And he's, he's he's doing what needs to be done. And as I say, we've got we've got more prospects in the pipeline now than we've ever had. And, you know, recruitment of businesses, it's a numbers game, the more you have in the pipeline, some will fall through, you know, most will fall through. It's it's a, it's a rejection game, but you'll get your fair share of them. And that's what we're working hard to do is get our fair share of them.   James Bell  Very cool. All right. So let's talk about this, this a new position. First off, I'm coming into this with absolutely no information. So what is the position   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  where the position is director of business development, and special projects, we like long, complicated titles that grow haze. But essentially it will be his focus will be primarily in the areas of entrepreneurship, business creation, which is the first item in our mission of business creation, business, retention, and expansion and retainment. And then business recruitment, and James Robin, will be joining us in June, the first or whatever day that is, that's the first Monday of June. And he will be in that position of business development and special projects, in part because of this microfactory. That's a big project. And we need somebody looking after that and making sure that the construction phase goes well, but then we also, you know, we have to fill that building when we get to that point. Once it's complete, we want it full of serving its purpose as an incubator for manufacturers. And so he will be involved in that as well as some of our housing initiatives and, and have a lot of areas that he'll be focused on.   James Bell  Very cool. Very cool. And you know, if that name sounds familiar, it sounded familiar to me too. But I had to look it up. It didn't immediately strike a strike my memory, but he was a long term, longtime office staffer with Senator Moran, right. He has   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  been he's he's been a district representative for Senator Moran covering I believe it's the Northwest 18 counties in Northwest Kansas. And that has given him I believe, a really good feel for small communities, rural communities like we are and like, our county is in terms of the struggles that they have, and some of the programs that might be available that federal programs as well as even state programs for small communities like ours, that we can take advantage of. So I think he I think his background number one is as the district representative for Senator Moran will serve him well. Number two, he born and raised in western Kansas in the Sharon Springs area. So he has a good understanding of, of what's going on and has that western Kansas work ethic that we like to see and it's so good to have. And so a lot of positives with James I'm very confident he'll he'll hit the ground running and do a lot of good for us.   James Bell  Yeah, that's awesome. You know, you talk about those the extreme western Kansas of communities and they think about the struggles they have and how they compare to some of the things we're dealing with. And oh, my goodness, like, if you can come up with some helpful ideas out there. That's going to be just a easy implement implementation here. I would say   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, that's one of the other areas that I hope to focus on in the future is that even though we are, you know, our, our coverage is Ellis County, we can't be insensitive to what goes on around us and other counties and the struggles that they have. Because those people come to hate they shop and Hayes, they buy cars and Hayes, they go to Fort Hays State, they go to events, and they do have a lot of struggles, you know, depopulation is a real struggle for them. aging populations is a struggle, you know, they have, they have all the same challenges that we have with workforce with housing with childcare. So, if we can help in those areas, I think in the long run, it benefits our community as well. So more and more we look at the region versus just Ellis County, you know, obviously, our focus is Ellis County, we want to do as much as we can here. But we we can't be insensitive to what goes on around us either. Yeah, and   James Bell  you know, in in recent months, years, maybe even I've been hearing a lot more about that collaborative nature. You know, it's, it's, it seems like even professionals, businessmen that have been doing their industry or in their industry for a long time, are kind of coming to that realization that it's no longer that competitive nature out here in western Kansas got to be collaborative one. And I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about how a position like this helps build that. And especially with the entrepreneurship piece, because, you know, again, a lot of conversations I'm hearing is the things that we want out here in western Kansas, they're not going to come to us, we have to build them.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, that's right, you know, creation is a big part of what we are focused on and what we need to be doing. And that's going to be a big part of what James is going to be responsible for. And, yeah, I mean, we we have to help are, we do have to look at it regionally. And we do. And that's, that's one of the reasons why James was such a good fit is because he has such a good familiarity with these 18 counties out here, as to what goes on and what their challenges are. So and, and he knows, and, you know, hopefully he understands the federal programs that might be available, as well as how the system works, you know, government in general, if you if you get into the middle of it, it can be overwhelming, as to okay, we've got this program and this program, and this program will What's that mean to me, and you need that person that understands that that can kind of guide you through that. And that's, that's what we're for. That's why when a prospective business is coming to town, we're kind of their first stop, because as they look for, okay, what programs might be available to us what, what infrastructure needs are we going to have, we're the ones that can guide them through that and, and as we expand and look at Western Kansas as a whole same kind of thing could be the case, a lot of these small communities. They can't afford full time economic development people. I mean, they just can't. So if we can help in some areas with some of the smaller communities, that that's great. And, you know, we can't be so proprietary and so focused on Oh, it's only what's good for hazer it's only what's good for Ellis County. You know, I always I say all the time. What's good for Hays is good for Ellis, Victoria Manjaro Chinchin. By the same token, what's good for Alice or Victoria or Manjaro? is good for AES. Because we need people. And so if attracting them any way we can, it's what we need to be doing.   James Bell  You mentioned, many of these smaller counties out here in western Kansas don't have that elk economic development staff. And I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about that as well how important organizations like grow Hayes in especially with the recent growth that you guys have accomplished down there, how important it is for groups like yours to continue to stimulate economic development?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, it is important and and we fortunately, in Ellis County, we have the resources to engage full time professional economic development people, a lot of counties don't. I've been watching here recently and it's it's there's just a procession of people in different positions out in western Kansas communities that they have an economic development director for a while, but then they move on to something else or they retire, or they're just part time or you know, they're they're part time they work for maybe a a local utility, but they also do economic development on the side, you know, the organization allows them to do that. But the problem with that is they just don't have the opportunity to focus enough time and energy towards what the whole process is. And I particularly see that with housing in some of these rural areas. I mean, they have real challenges, and we do too, but we're able to make some strides and and solve some of these problems, but they they really have an uphill battle. And so I think long term, that's something we want to explore is how we can help Additionally, in some of these smaller communities where they can maybe have some sort of a consulting arrangement with the Ellis, our organization, and we could maybe provide some of those kinds of services, we do have the creda organization, the western Kansas, Rural Economic Development Alliance. And that's a group of Eiken of counties and cities and economic development professionals, all through the western half of the state, that participate in this organization. And they're a resource for each other. And it's a great organization. But sometimes it takes a little bit more than that takes actually boots on the ground to do some of that. And over time, I think we'll we'll be doing some of those kinds of things just out of necessity.   James Bell  You know, on the flip side of this, I wonder if you want to speak to folks out here, I know there's there's there's I think everyone would agree a pretty independent streak and the folks that live in western Kansas, and I think some of them feel that maybe organizations like this that grow it's it's it's I know, it's not a government organization, but it's quasi governmental, you do get government funds. I wonder if you want to speak to that, you know, why? Or how the growth of organizations like this aren't necessarily government more a local effort?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, certainly, one could argue that as organizations like ours grow, and we do get some government funding that, you know, we're, we're one more thing that is on that list of things, it get funded by governments. And, and as I like to think, you know, it needs to be a good investment by the local governments in what they're spending and what their return is, you know, that's why every year we go before them and tell them what we've done, and tell them what our ask is for the coming year, and what our plans are. And, you know, it's up to them to decide if it's been a good investment or not, I certainly think it has locally for all the communities in our in our county, but that's what the elected officials are there to do and make that assessment. But if, if, if we're not there to do it, it simply doesn't get done. You know, that, that company that wants to locate here that wants to go through the process of asking for some economic incentives, or knowing what programs that might be available for him. The reality is that if there's no if we're not there, either the city or the county, somebody's gonna have to hire it done. And they still won't be looking at things as broadly as what we are and the number of services and things that we offer. So but yeah, I hear you on the growth thing. And, you know, part of this, the adding of these two people is, anybody that knows me knows I'm not a spring chicken. And there will come a day where I'm not going to be doing this anymore. And norburn Our organization needs succession planning. Well, when this when James is in place, and David's in place, you know, we'll have a much more secure succession plan, whatever that is, I don't know that it even be either one of them. But whatever that plan is, will be much more solid than it would have been if it was just me doing everything. And if I go out and get hit by a bus or something like that, that would have been problematic. Absolutely.   James Bell  We've got just about a minute or so left. I wonder if we want to share details. When is Jim Seaton started down there,   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  He started June 1, or whatever day that is the first Monday in June. He's, he's I'm, I'm confident that had a little bit of a conversation with Senator Moran. And he's, while he hates to lose James, he feels like it's a positive move for James. You know, I think James James is failing is what he's indicated to me as he'd like to make a difference on a local level versus what he was doing on a federal level. I think you can see the results a little easier on a local level and, and I think he's excited about that. So he starts on June the first and we'll get him going and we'll get some getting acclimated to some projects and some he'll have some definite things he's on his to do list and relate star to partnership, whether it be our youth entrepreneurship challenge, pitch it events, try spec, the Speaker Series, whatever.

On this episode of the Post Podcast Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares thoughts on the economic impact of the USD 489 bond issue.   Transcript: EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.   James Bell  The Hays USD 489 bond issue that passed this week will have significant impact on the area economy. Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams stops by to talk about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast. We had a bond pass this week, we're going to talk about some of the economic impacts on that good and bad. But first, from what I understand you just got back from a pretty big trip, right?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, I did, there was a western Kansas delegation that went to Washington, DC to visit our elected officials and talk about what's going on in our communities, what challenges we have and potentially what they might be able to do to help those issues. And so we had, I believe they're about 42. And all from Hays, Dodge City, Garden City, Great Bend, liberal. So had a good group. And it was a good trip. Awesome.   James Bell  Although I think for my understanding you you left behind the mayor, he's still sitting up there and try to figure out how to get back to   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I guess I'm not 100% sure that he was supposed to go to San Diego, and I don't know where he ended up. But he bears constant watching, that's for sure. Because you just never know where he's gonna be.   James Bell  For sure. Yeah. Just they were they were scheduled to be on this morning. And we got that word for last minute. They're still traveling. So okay,   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  yeah, I think we had to go to San Diego for business reasons. So I don't think he's still in DC, unless he wasn't able to get on his flights or whatever. But who knows. But it was a good trip, we were able to meet with some of the representative Mann's staff. And then we also got to meet with Senator Marshall and Senator Moran, and talked about Essential Air Service and things like that, those kinds of issues that that impact our community that they may have some bearing on. And then we talked about a lot of issues that they they don't have any direct impact on our housing situation on our childcare situation, workforce. But we did talk about those things and make them aware of kind of what's going on in our communities.   James Bell  Very good. Oh, and what kind of reception when we were they were they pretty taken aback? Or were they did they already know this? So this was just kind of filling in the details. While   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  they know most of it, you know, they spent some time out here, they know what's going on. Sometimes it's just good, good to get on their turf and talk with them in their environment. And so, but we did share some things with him some concerns that that exist in our communities. And, you know, Hayes is not unique when we talk about childcare when we talk about housing, when we talk about workforce, all of those things are all communities are facing those, not only in Kansas, but pretty much across the United States. Absolutely.   James Bell  And we owe as we talked about here, on the on the segment to the collaboration, the working together figuring out these problems, you know, so we're not it's not the competitive us versus them. It's we all got to get through this. We do.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  And it takes a lot of people involved. And it takes some time, unfortunately, never happens as fast as you would like.   James Bell  Absolutely. So moving on to this bond issue. Speaking of things that are going to take a while. It's past, we got the we got the go ahead from the voters to go ahead and revamp some of the schools build a new haste High School. I wonder what your initial and first thoughts are on the economic impact of this thing as it's moving forward?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, as I said before the bond issue, it's my belief, it's our belief that schools are critical infrastructure to a community. And as we work with companies, as well, as individuals who are looking to relocate to our community schools play an important role in that. And I can tell you that we have any number of retailers, you know, 610 12 that we talk to on a consistent basis. And all of them have been keenly interested in what's going to happen with that bond. I'm not saying that now that we've passed a bond, all these people say, this is where we're going to go, and this is what we're going to do. But they have been concerned about it. And they have had the attitude that if we're not willing to invest in our own community, why should they? And so, and the reason they're concerned about it is they have to have a workforce, they have to attract and retain a workforce and schools are important when it comes to a workforce as his housing as his childcare. You know, all of those things are critical aspects of attracting a workforce. But schools are an important part. And I know consistently Hayes Medical Center has struggled to attract physicians, when they look at the conditions of our schools, other health care providers. And the retailers we talk about that we would like to get into Hayes, we'd love to have more retail than we do. Schools are of concern to them. So you know, I said prior to the to the bond vote that there is a cost of not passing the ball On that I believe over time is greater than the cost of the bond. And the cost of the bond is high, no doubt about that. But not passing, it would have put us in a difficult position when we start talking about recruitment of people and businesses. And it's a good thing. That's fast now, now, it's up to USD 49. To execute. I know, not everybody supported it, not everybody thinks it's a good idea. But from an economic standpoint, I will be very positive for our community.   James Bell  You know, you mentioned people move in here and the workforce piece, which I think is on a lot of the business owner minds here in Ellis County. But one of the things that was pointed out to me was the online rankings. And when you go to online rankings, so if you're looking at maybe job boards, job postings, and you see something and he's like, Oh, hey, that looks interesting. The first thing you're going to do is look at Hayes. And if you have children, schools are going to be important. And what was pointed out to me it was if you go to several these ranking websites, where should you live kind of websites, the high schools were D's and F's. And it wasn't based on the education because I think everyone understands, we have a great education system here in the district. But the facilities drag that score down. And I think that'll automatically cut off a lot of people, when they were looking at thinking about hate.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, I agree with you, we do a great job of teaching kids, we just haven't provided a very good learning environment. And when you when you read the data, and it suggests that in the next 10 years, five to 10 years, there's going to be 20 million Americans who choose to relocate away from urban areas. And they're going to look at the choices that they have, because many in almost all those cases, their remote workers or their retirees, and they can decide where they want to go. And so and these are a desirable demographic that we want to recruit to our community. And so we're competing with lots and lots of other communities for these people. And we have so much good going on, and really very little, that's negative, but the schools were one of them, and it's a big one. And so now that we can say we check that box for people, I think we've got a much better story to tell them we did before. And the one before was good. It's just we didn't have all the boxes checked, but I think we do now. So I think that'll make a difference as well over the next five to 10 years in our ability to attract people to our community, whether tase Ellis Victoria, wherever it might be, we've got a better story to tell now.   James Bell  Very good. I'm also curious about your thoughts on the impact, you know, the short term impact because they're going to be spending a lot of money building the schools and doing the construction work. And of course, there's everything that goes along with it. There's the administrative work and the architectural drawings and the all of that that's got to have some sort of impact on the local economy, right?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  It absolutely does. I mean, obviously, local contractors will be involved in the construction of the schools and the improvements. They hire people, they pay wages, materials, a certain percentage of them, I don't know what and I don't know what we can supply locally, but a lot of those materials will be supplied to the projects from local vendors. And so it will have a positive economic impact for our community, you know, that the $143.5 million is doesn't go out out of town and never come back. I mean, a lot of that is spent locally, to create those jobs to build those buildings. It creates jobs, heating and cooling people, plumbers, electricians, all of those people will be participating in some of that spending. And it will have a positive economic impact from that standpoint, as well.   James Bell  There's another piece on this that I've heard people talk about, and that's the the the folks that will be running this whole thing is a Kansas City based company. And I think some folks were kind of I mean, maybe annoyed is the right word, but they had concerns that it wasn't a local group that took on the project on in whole. And I wonder if you want to speak about that because there are some really good reasons why someone say like Glassman here, maybe couldn't do that right?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, the size of the bond eliminates local contractors from being the general contractor, you know, there are no local contractors that can bond $143.5 million job. That doesn't mean the local contractors won't participate just means that a larger contractor has to be the general contractor, I believe the manager at risk or whatever the term is. And so that is one aspect of it. The other aspect is you know, DLR Group, which is the architectural firm. And I've had people say, you know, do you they questioned them in a lot of different ways, their motivation and their, their capabilities. And you know, they built hundreds, if not 1000s of schools across the country in the world. I mean, they're a large organization. They do this all the time. There's nobody locally that that has that level of expertise. So you have to bring in those type of resources to make this thing happen and manage these projects. And you know that they'll do a good job, I have no doubt. I mean, this is this is what they do. And I have a lot of trust and faith in that organization. And NAB Holtz, who is the general contractor, and then our administration locally, you know, some people have questioned their ability to handle this type of stuff, and I just don't see it, I see a very engaged, capable group of administrators at USD 489. I think it's gonna go well, yeah, there'll be some hiccups. There always are   James Bell  always gonna Yeah. I mean, it's dealt with construction understands that. Yeah, exactly.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I mean, nothing ever goes quite as planned. But you just you just roll with the punches, when that happens, and make it make it happen. So I have a lot of confidence that this will come off and three years from now, or whatever that timeframe is, we're going to look a whole lot different than we do now.   James Bell  You know, I wonder maybe two there's, there's a piece that I've been hearing a lot of rumblings about on this thing, and it's the even supporters of the bond friends of mine people are speaking to were very supportive. And they they voted yes. They weren't happy to share that they had voted yes. But they did have concerns about the way that the planning was going. So I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about that, why these why some of the fine details are now being considered after the vote after the fact after the election, because that was their thing was like, why are we voting on we don't know exactly what we're doing until after? Why is that?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, it's because you, you can't nail down all those fine details without doing a tremendous amount of work. And spending a significant amount of money with architectural drawings and actual, the actual nuts and bolts of a project, you know, no school bond anywhere that has ever passed, particularly this magnitude. You ever knew everything about what exactly was going into each aspect of it prior to the bond passing. I mean, that's part of the planning and the design phase, you have some broad ideas, you present those broad ideas, you pass the bond, and then you dig in on all the details, doesn't mean it's going to cost more doesn't mean that anybody's got any ulterior agendas. It just means that you can't know all those answers before you actually pass the bond and, at that point, are willing to invest the money to nail down all those details. And it's a significant amount of money. I mean, I don't know if any, if you've ever seen James, the plans for a large building that goes on, but there, it's a roll of hundreds of sheets, technical drawings, and that just doesn't happen before you commit yourself to doing that stuff. You never spend that much money before you even knew that something was going to pass. So that's very much the way these things work. It's not unique to our community at all. It's just the way this process works.   James Bell  You know, on the cost piece, I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about that as well. For my firm, but let me let me back that up. The way that some folks seem to approach this was that the cost was not locked in when we talked about the 143 point 5 million. Yes, that's what we voted on. But that doesn't mean it's actually when it goes what it's going to end up costing the district in the end the taxpayers here, I wonder if you want to speak a little bit to that. Is that a real concern? Or is that just maybe under misunderstanding the circumstances?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, as my understanding the manager at risk has said is not going to cost more than $143.5 million. And so, and they're only going to bond $143.5 million. So that's that's all they've got to spend. So they've got to come in within those parameters. Now. None of us has a crystal ball. We don't know what the future looks like, specifically. And so there may be adjustments and whatnot along the way, I have no idea what those might be. But the hard number is 143 point 5 million. That's what the taxpayers agreed to do. They agreed to have a new high school to have the improvements to these middle school and junior high or the grade schools and that kind of thing. And so those numbers are pretty much locked in stone. It's not like this could go to 170 million, because we just the voters had not approved that. So they've looked long and hard at it. As I said, these people do these kinds of projects all over the country all the time, they know what costs are going to be and it won't be over $143.5 million.   James Bell  Okay, now there's one last piece on this we got to talk about and this is an impact that I think everyone can agree on taxes now that we voted on this are gonna go up and that does have some negative and positive impacts on the community and wonder if you want to speak to those.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, that's the Tough part nobody wants their taxes to go up including me including the superintendent to USD 49 I'm quite sure. But we sometimes have to make investments and the only thing I'll say to that is that I hear a lot of our taxes are way too high and Hayes   James Bell  highest taxes in the country right here in Hays Kansas. I've heard   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  that's simply not true. You know, our mill levy is the second lowest in the state of Kansas by like two hundredths of a 10th compared to Overland Park. So our tax our mill levy is not high now our valuations, I will be the first to admit our real estate valuations are higher than a lot of places. But this this, the same house in DOD city or garden city, as in Hayes, their taxes are higher than ours by a significant amount, even though their valuations may be a little bit lower. Their mill levies are considerably higher in our mill levies, 110 or 109, point something Mills garden or dodge cities 181. And people all the time say, you know, we're tired of these comparisons and that type of thing. But when you say my taxes are too high, you begged the question, compared to what I mean, what do you base that on? And, and I've heard people compared to maybe other states. But that's really difficult to compare to other states, because taxing systems in other states are much, much different. They may have higher income tax, they may have different types of taxes that are charged. So it's really difficult to compare from state to state, but within our state, we can compare and we're we compare very favorably in terms of our mill levy versus everyone else's. Now, the real estate values, that's a that's a component of supply and demand, we don't have enough supply. And as a consequence, the demand is high and values have run up. We're trying to fix that by adding more inventory to the market. But unfortunately, that didn't happen very quickly. You know, we've got the houses going in the Tallgrass second edition, there's what 18 to 20 of them under construction right now, every little bit helps, we've got apartments going up, that'll help but it takes time to do that. But in time, if we add inventory, we will we will see valuation soften as opposed to continue to rise.   James Bell  Very good. And I'm sure a lot of people are excited to hear that.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well you know, I don't have a crystal ball either. So I can't guarantee that but I do know if we had enough supply, we'll even out this balance of supply and demand and properties will not sell for way over the list price and that type of thing like they are now on occasions. And that's not really healthy environment for anybody but the guy who's selling and moving to someplace else. But then again, he's faced with whatever those values are

On this episode of the Post Podcast Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the Heart of America Development Corporation's land donation to the Microfactoy project. Transcript: EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.   James Bell  The Heart of America Development Corporation has donated land for the Hays Microfactory. Grow Haye, Executive Director Doug Williams stops by to talk to us a little bit about the Heart of America group as well as that factory project. On this episode of the Post Podcast.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  we had a donation of the land that the microfactory will be located on Heart of America development owns some property out in the commerce Parkway area surrounding Glassman corporation that development is one that heart of America developed and, and they were good enough to donate the lot at the corner of ninth and commerce Parkway to us to construct the microfactory on so that was that was great news.   James Bell  Absolutely, yeah, and these guys have been when we talk about the heart of America, and we're going to talk a little bit about today even, but they really are helping the community. And that's kind of their goal, right to help bring these projects to the marketplace, or heart of America,   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  which was started back in the 80s by a group of visionary people and visionary businesses who contributed some money and raise some capital and purchase some land out on what is now South commerce Parkway by the airport and started basically an industrial park. And they constructed the Sykes building early on and rented it to Sykes and they've been very active in commercial development for a long time. And you know, about a year and a half ago or so they got into the residential development as well with the Tallgrass second edition to the east of the technical college. So their their mission basically is to promote community development in Ellis County. And they have done a terrific job of that over gosh, almost 40 years.   James Bell  Incredible. We want to talk about some of the details of what they do and what they bring to the community. But let's talk first about this microfactory. We talked about it again a couple of weeks ago. And really it from from my recollection, the concept is kind of a co working space, but for industrial efforts, right?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Basically, that's the concept. It's an incubator for manufacturing companies. And we received a base grant from the state of Kansas part of the ARPA money for $2.63 million to construct this 30,000 square foot micro factory, it'll be divided into 564, we don't really know yet, because we don't really know who's going to go in there. But it'll be split into sections. And we will we will offer it to prospective or existing manufacturers who are have a, maybe a guy's got a great idea, but he just doesn't have the room to operate and be efficient in his to develop his product, or a bigger company that wants to get a development of a new product off site. And they want a space to do it in. That's what this will be designed to do. It'll be constructed to be very manufacturer friendly, meaning there'll be a loading dock, there'll be high ceilings, high doors, the kinds of things that a manufacturer would need large electrical capability. And so hopefully, the concept is that we offer this at a at a bargain basement rent to these people for a few years. And then they develop their product, they grow their business, and then they move on to their own building, hopefully in the heart of America development where there will be some additional lots and and we roll the next one in. So it's a it's kind of an endowment for a long, long time. And we hope to really enhance the manufacturing capability within Ellis County because this is an area that we don't have an awful lot of we do have some manufacturing in Ellis County, obviously with the EnerSys and Hess and cross manufacturing and several others, but we don't have as much as we would like to have and typically with with manufacturers come good paying jobs. And, of course, workforce is the issue right now. But it hasn't always been and won't always be. And so we need to keep developing companies that are going to employ people and pay good wages.   James Bell  You know, and when I think when when, until very recently, we started talking about this microfactory project I when we when I thought about, you know, manufacturing, I thought about some of the companies you talked about, like Hass, or Rand says those giant companies that do employ a lot of people, but I've also come to realize that there's a lot of small manufacturer small entrepreneurs out here that maybe here's a great example down in lacrosse, the guy that they developed the flame throwers for agricultural use, you know, it's probably not huge operation. I don't know how many people work down there, but I can't imagine it's, you know, more than 20 or so. And this is a perfect project to help bring those people to Hays where we've also already done such a great job on the white collar side.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Exactly. We need to promote manufacturing small manufacturing become big manufacturers. I use this example. If you looked at what they and has his operation in 1990 or 91. relative to what it is today. We want to find the next Dan has who can come in and has an idea or a concept and start developing products need some space to do it in needs some assistance perhaps in going through a patenting process? or what have you, we have a relationship with the technology development institute in Manhattan. And that's what they do they prototype products to help an inventor or a manufacturer patent those products. And so it'll be it'll be the incubator for that type of thing. And we're looking forward to it. I think it'll I think it'll have a big impact over a long, long period of time in our community, because it'll be a building, it'll be there for 50 plus years, for sure.   James Bell  Yeah. And, you know, I think it might also, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but help offset some of those manufacturing operations. Like I think about meat processing, the things that we can't bring to here because of either the geography or in this case, you know, water issues.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  One of the reasons that we don't have a lot of manufacturing in Ellis County is because of some water restrictions. And so some things are just not going to work well here that are large water users. So small manufacturers make more sense. They're typically not big water users. And if we can diversify our economy with multiple small manufacturers, I take that over one large one, you go down to like Salina And historically, they've had large manufacturers down there, Philips Lighting, the what is now Kubota, Tony's pizza, I mean, they manufacture pizzas and food and that type of thing. And Kubota manufactures farm equipment and things and, and they employ, like 1300 people and those type of operations, we're not really looking for that we wouldn't have the workforce to meet that requirement either. But we can sure build our own and then gradually put companies in there that will go from two or three or four employees up to 15 or 20, and then hopefully, move out onto their own building and end up with the two or 300.   James Bell  You know, going back to the heart of America piece on this, you know, that organization, I'm kind of curious, like, how do they come to the decisions to fund like, I like a project like this, like did the land I think you said that they already own the land, or they just donated it to you. But you know, even thinking about the residential project, like how do they make those decisions?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, they have a board of directors that looks at projects and keeping in mind their mission to promote community development. And they see that, you know, that's why they purchased these land purchases they've made both on South commerce Parkway as well as the heart of America edition, by Glassman Corporation. They look for ways that they can promote growth and development. And so a couple years ago, we visited with them and we said, you know, we, historically they had been a commercial developer or industrial developer, you know, they've had land for that use. But our comment was, you know, if we don't solve our housing problem in Hayes, we're not going to have any employees to go into those commercial enterprises. And they were good enough to step up to the plate and invest a lot of money into this housing development, which is going very well so far. So it's turned out well, but so they they have been open to look at different things, but at the bar at the base of it all, is that their interest in community growth and development in our community, and and they've really stepped up in any number of occasions and done that.   James Bell  Yeah, I you know, I wonder how normal is this in municipalities, especially out here in western Kansas, where they have an organization like this a nonprofit that kind of helps spur that economic growth?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I think it's, it's fairly normal in different ways. A lot of times the municipality itself will own an industrial park, the city will make an investment or the county will make an investment in an industrial park and develop it and, and put the infrastructure in place so that companies can come in there and, and build a building and start less common with a not for profit, like heart of America. The beauty of the heart of America deal is we've we've partnered very well with the city. You've got gro Hayes, Heart of America and the city of Hades or the city of Ellis or wherever it might be that jointly work towards these things. And that makes it a lot easier to make some things happen when you when you've got that many people with a vested interest on a positive outcome.   James Bell  Yeah, and we've talked a lot about the collaborative efforts between you know, Hayes and Ellis County and Ellis County in trigo. County, and really the whole area and everybody has to work together to make this thing work, or we're all going to be in troubled long run, right?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, absolutely. I mean, we're all joined at the hip in one way or another. I know each community has their own issues. Each community would like to have their own growth and some retail and some jobs and whatnot, I understand that housing. But at the end of the day, all of us are in this western Kansas ecosystem for lack of a better term. And what's good for Joaquina is good for Hayes. What's good for Hayes is good for wall Keaney, you know, or Ellis or Victoria or Russell, whatever it might be. We are very closely tied together.   James Bell  Yeah, no, I don't think we really actually talked about this, but the heart of America or the heart of America, the group, are they just a MOS county or just hates   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Ellis County? Okay, so their mission is to promote development in Ellis County. And they've they've helped way back when I think they had some role in the wheelchairs a Kansas move to Ellis. When they expanded from I believe lacrosse to Ellis, I was a little before my time in this position. But they were they were involved with that, as was our organization. And so Ellis County as a whole, they they want to promote development throughout Ellis County, and they don't go outside the Ellis County borders, but they do it. They do go beyond the Hayes borders for sure.   James Bell  Okay. And again, as part of that collaborative effort, you know, what's good for us is good for Phillips County and Brooks County,   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  believe it is?   James Bell  Well, you know, Doug, I don't really have anything else on the heart of America thing. I wonder if you have any other last thoughts or anything else we want to talk about in terms of that microfactory project?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, you know, I think for people to understand it better, we've kind of described what it is, the financial piece is somewhat interesting, you know, the state of Kansas, Department of Commerce put out these base grant applications and we and 417. Others applied, believe they granted 33, so we're very fortunate to receive it. But the project is about three and a half million dollars. And so the state wants a match from the organization is doing it. And in the case of gro Hayes, they wanted to match it from us. So of 26%, which is about seven or 800 $900,000. And factor that into the fact that we don't really know where construction costs are for sure today, because it's really a moving target. That's why a donation like the land donation from Heart of America is so important because we're going to scramble to to come up with that additional match money, we may be able to get some grants, we may be able to borrow it, whatever the case might be, we felt it was too important not to happen, when we've got the opportunity to get this amount of funding from from a grant from the state. We're just going to make it happen. And so we've we've dug in and done that, and we're in the process of applying for some other grants and that kind of thing. And, and hopefully those will come through but we're, we're burning our ships on the shore on this one, we're going full speed ahead and going to get this thing constructed. And we'll figure out how we pay for the rest of it. At that point in time. We've we've established the funds, it's just a matter of where they come from and how we do that. And so we're excited to get going on it. As with all projects like this, it's slow to get started. And you've got to get architectural plans, you've got to get bids, you've got to get all kinds of permitting and that kind of thing. But we're eager to get going and keep keep watching it ninth and commerce Parkway, it won't be real quick. But I'm hoping maybe sometime late summer, early fall, you'll start seeing some activity out there. If nothing else, somebody with a bulldozer moving around dirt to get the site ready.   James Bell  Yeah, I love that. And it's a two year timeframe. It has to be done in two years. We need to be done in two years. Yeah. You mentioned the base grant that put that together. That was an interesting list. And we've got just about a minute or so left, a minute or so left. But I wonder if you want to talk about that. I thought it was kind of surprising the projects that they chose to fund out of this thing   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  little bit. You know, it was if you read the the requirements for the grant, it was primarily to be economic development. And I think many, many applications were for infrastructure. And one could argue that infrastructure is economic development, but I think they were looking for more impactful type things. His direct economic development, was also heavily skewed, which probably comes as no surprise to eastern Kansas. I think Johnson County got maybe half the funds, perhaps. But nonetheless, you know, there was great interest in it lots of applications. We were very pleased. I think we had the right project. We put in some applications for some other projects, too, that we did not get. And so in in hindsight, when I look back, I can see why the microfactory was appealing to them because it's pure economic development. You know, when what what develops out of that facility will employ people and provide good quality jobs and that's what at the end of the day, that's what's really important.

On this episode of the Post Podcast Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares updates presented to the city of Hays during this week's commission meeting. Transcript: EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.   James Bell  Grow Hays can often act as a point of contact for business owners in Ellis County Grow Hays, executive director Doug Williams stops by to talk to us about that and more on this episode of the post podcast. We had the City Commission recap a little bit earlier on the show. And one of the things that came up was user apparently you were at their meeting last time. We're gonna talk a little bit about that today. Right?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  We are and I was there.   James Bell  Good stuff. Well, good and bad. I think Sandy Jacobs told us.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, mine was all good. There was some bad there are some challenges. But yeah, challenges.   James Bell  That's a better word for it. Because I mean, we talked about this all the time. There's there, we all know, there are some opportunities here. And hey, so we've got to take on and also some amazing things going on.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  That is true. And we I wouldn't say that it was all good what I talked about, but most of what I talked about was positive, you know, our microfactory housing, that type of thing. And that there was a group of childcare providers at the at the meeting last night, and Sarah was singer who's leading the childcare Task Force spoke and gave an update and, and childcare is certainly a challenge for our community.   James Bell  Yeah, almost unbelievable numbers that we were hearing this morning about parents in need, and students that are children, I guess that can't find a spot.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  That is true. And it you know, that ties back into much of what we do, which is workforce. And if if one of the parents can't work because they have to stay home with the children, because they either can't find childcare, or it's too expensive for them. That takes out of our workforce. And the task force has done a survey which has identified a large number of people that would go back to work if they had childcare. So it's an issue. We're not unique, you know, like many of these problems. It's all over the country that childcare is a challenge, but particularly I think, Kansas, because we actually have some, some pretty antiquated regulations that limit the number of children that can be taken in certain situations. And that just makes the problem worse. So we have some challenges in that area.   James Bell  Absolutely. You know, I we did hear about some of the action and activities that are going on locally to address that problem. I wonder if you have any insight on on the bigger picture, the state level stuff? Or if you've even if they've even really done anything with that in the last few weeks? Well, I   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  think there's discussion. You know, a lot of it comes if you talk to, if you talk to childcare providers, the ratios that they have to maintain based on how many children they can look after, at certain age groups and how that affects. If you take so many infants, she can't take some others. So age, children, just just different things like that, which I think that is being looked at that the state, the Kansas Department of Health and Education, I guess is who supervises that. And when you look at Kansas, compared to many other states, the ratios here are, are pretty prohibitive with, say, the number of infants that the number of providers per infant, I believe it's four to one under 18 months. So if you look at the economic aspect of a daycare center or childcare facility, they can take four infants per employee to provide that service. Well, they can charge, let's just say three bucks an hour. For those for infants, maybe that's $12 an hour, and to hire someone to take care of those kids. And that kind of thing may be more than that, not to mention payroll taxes, and that kind of thing. So it's a it's a broken system, because of these ratios. And I understand, Katie, he they, their primary concern is child's safety as it should be. But there's got to be a happy medium in there someplace. And I think when I last look, Kansas was a one of two states in the United States that had that stringent of a ratio requirement. And so we really, you know, they need to look at that, and I think they are.   James Bell  Okay, well, and I looked forward to see you know, what, what results come out of these discussions and what actual action we can take to alleviate some of this need, because it sounds huge. But I wonder if you want to speak about some of the other updates that you gave the city last night? Well,   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I told him about our microfactory project, you know, we got the base grant, and we're proceeding along with the try and get arrangements made architects engaged to get that project started. That of course, is the 30,000 square foot building that we intend to construct at the corner of ninth and commerce Parkway. And it'll be split into either five or six different areas for upcoming or startup manufacturers who we hope to you know, it's to be an incubator for them. They go in there where they operate for three to maybe up to five years, perhaps trying to get their product established and grow their business. And then we roll them out into a facility of their own, and we roll the next guy in. So it's it's one of these deals that will, that will serve as an endowment for our community for a long, long time. And so I explained that to them and what our plans are there. We hope to get started sometime this summer, on the construction of that we have two years to get it constructed in under the terms of the grant we received. But we hope to be up and running well before two years. So we're getting started on that. I talked about housing, we talked about the apartment situation last week, a little bit in terms of the number of apartments that are being constructed in the area right now. And then also discussed the tall grass addition, the fact that there are currently now there are four homes that are owner occupied, they've been completed and the owners have moved in.   James Bell  so fast that didn't happen. I mean, we talked about how long it takes to get these things to happen. But that actually seemed like it happened overnight. It seems like   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  it it was back in, you know, the fall that they started construction on these and, and so they I give the contractors that are building out there all the credit in the world, because they have had to overcome a lot of obstacles.   James Bell  And we heard about some more of those obstacles that are coming, or at least for one of the builders, I think that they said they wouldn't be able to start the next set until July.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, well, yeah, I mean, the if you go out there, and I encourage everybody to do so. There are eight basements that are in the ground right now. But the framer who the contractor uses is tied up on other projects and can't get to it till probably June. And so there they sit for 30 to 45 days, that just adds to the construction time, it just adds to the time that that home is going to be available for somebody to move into. But we've got activity going there's there'll be four completed in the next 30 I actually another six completed in the next 30 days. And then these eight are going to are already started that have basements, the other contractors plan to start another 11 this summer. So that developments going to be built out pretty quickly. I'd say by year end, you're going to see lots and lots of houses out there. Excellent.   James Bell  And that really ended Sandy Jacobs talked a little bit about your I say famous kind of workforce needs pyramid that you go around the community and share. And that's that's the bottom. So to help us kind of get to the spot where we can develop those other things. And that's really something else we want to talk about today. There's been an effort that you guys have made, and really, I think done a great job within the last few months of promoting Hayes's story, and getting people out here. And we talk a lot about this remote workers, they can pick wherever they want to go. And we hope Hayes is one of those places. But I want to talk about that. As your organization grow Hayes's the Economic Development Group, and connections with so many other organizations, I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about someone that maybe is looking at Hayes from the front range of Denver, and they want to start a business here, what resources are available to   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  well, where they're starting place, obviously, if they want to start a business, we have an E community loan program where we can provide funds to a business startup, they have to involve a bank as well. And that and we've we've actually got a couple of we're meeting today on one application for a business analysis. And we will probably be funding a portion of that one. And then we obviously we kind of know where the sites might be available what either space or building site might be available. So we assist them in that regard. And then we can connect them with all the other resources that they may need. The Small Business Development Center on campus can help them with business plans. We can direct them to the northwest Kansas Planning Commission and some of these people who can help them with some SBA loan things. So we're kind of a connector, we if they start with us, which we hope that they do, we can help them find the resources that they need, and show them why Hays is a good place to come if you're going to start up a business, or why Hayes is a good place to come if you just if you're a remote worker, and you can live anywhere you want to live. We've got a great story to tell here.   James Bell  Absolutely. You know, I wonder if we want to talk a little bit of the details and some of those other organizations. I know network Kansas is a big one that you guys partner with a lot and I think they provide some of those resources for potential business owners or entrepreneurs as well.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  They do they're a great partner for us. They're a great resource for across the entire state. They do fund are a community loans. So we work with them and if once we have a loan committee local made up of local people, but once we approve a loan, they send us the money to provide to the borrower and integrate new twist on that is that network Kansas was able to get a grant from the Patterson Foundation. And now, up to 20% of what a borrower, the loan amount from us is available to them in in form of a grant. So if some are our loan limit is $45,000, if somebody qualifies, and if they meet the requirements of the of the grant 9000 of that comes back to them as they don't have to repay it. So that's a great deal not to mention the fact that our interest rates are typically around prime rate, so typically going to be lower than they would expect to pay elsewhere. So it's a great program, I encourage anybody that is starting up a business or wants to do an expansion to to contact us on that. And network. Kansas also does our youth entrepreneurship programs. And they sponsor a lot of entrepreneurial activity. So they're a great organization and a great partner.   James Bell  Yeah, you mentioned the SBDC, down on the Fort Hays campus. And I wonder if we want to talk about this as well. I think really out here in Hays, we've generated this culture of entrepreneurship, that really, I think kind of maybe starts there on the campus and permeates the entire community. But if you're someone that's looking for that kind of place where you can connect with those folks, Haze is a great place for that right?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Or it is now the campus, obviously, they're they're very focused on entrepreneurship on campus with the Faulkner challenge and and Hanson Hall are both very entrepreneurship focused, the SBDC that's Rick Felton Berger leads that group, and they're very good at helping a person take an idea and getting it on paper, because you know, a bank, they always want to see it on paper, they want to see your business plan. And, you know, I've always said, a business plan is one of those necessary evils of starting a business. Because the second day, you're in business, everything changes, and you can kind of the business plan may not be as appropriate, as applicable, as it was, when you thought you were gonna get started. But it is, it is something you have to do. And Rick does a great job with working with prospective business owners or business owners who are wanting to expand to actually crunch the numbers and put the components of the plan together, so that the bank can look at it and understand what you're trying to accomplish. And, and it's more likely to fund a deal. Very cool.   James Bell  You know, I wonder if somebody out there is listening, and maybe their local, maybe they are out on the front range or somewhere else in the country. But if they're listening, I think and man, I think he's might be a place I want to check out what's the best and easiest way for him to get those economic resources? Is it just calling or checking out websites? Or a little bit of both?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, a little bit of both. But certainly calling our office is where we start. And that's as a connector to these resources, we're going to, we're going to ask him some questions about what they're trying to do and what their resources are and what their background is. And then from that we can direct them into and put them in the right direction, get them in touch with the right people. We don't do it all we do some of it, but we don't do it all. But we do know who does. And that's the key. And we can save people a lot of time and grief, I think if they would call us and allow us to help them connect with the right resources.   James Bell  Yeah, you know, I think about all those business owners that I've known over the years that when they launch their business or launch a new operation anyway, they try to reinvent the wheel. And I think oh my gosh, guys get go to get the help that is out there. That's what it's for.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Yeah, and we don't charge anything. SBDC doesn't charge anything, you know, this is all free stuff. So why not take advantage of the resources that are available to you, and can ensure your success?   James Bell  Absolutely. Well, Doug, I tell you, we've got just about a minute or so left in the thing else that we want to hit on before we go?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, I think, you know, we talk about brief space all the time. But brace space is the microfactory for office workers. You know, we have space down there and it's really going well down there. We do still have space available for some people if they want to come down and check us out. The usage of the facility just keeps getting more and more the meeting rooms and the various our podcast station and all those things that we have for resources for people. So as always come down, check us out. We'll give you a tour and maybe it'd be the right spot for you

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the ongoing apartment construction in Hays. Transcript: EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.   James Bell  Over 100 apartments will open soon in Hays, Grow Hays, Executive Director Doug Williams shares with this that impact of those apartments on the housing market and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  turnkey properties LLC has brought forth an application for an Rh ID, which is a rural housing Senate District, which is a program that helps pay for some of the infrastructure and that type of thing. These type of projects and it's a, it's a 36 unit apartment complex, at the corner of fourth and fourth, which is right behind the old Washington school property. In South Hays, it will be 36 units for buildings with nine units each if I've got my math right, so much. And they will be both one and two bedroom units with garages and multi storey with garages on the main floor, because it's in the floodplain, you have to do some things a little bit differently. And so there will be garages on the main ground level, and then apartments above. So a good project and should be should be a very positive addition to that part of town.   James Bell  Yeah, very cool. Very cool. So you know, RH IDs, we've we've talked about these a lot. And I think it was maybe two or three segments ago, we talked about kind of all of these tax incentive districts, but this one that gets seems to be getting used pretty regularly here in Hays,   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  it is it's, it's a good tool for a developer to use to try and recover some of the infrastructure costs that they have to incur in putting in a development. So that can be sewer water, Electric Gas, some other costs are eligible to be recovered, and it's recovered through the tax increment, meaning today, the taxes on that property are zero, it's been a school, when that apartment complex is complete, and it's probably 36 units, you can just take that easily, probably times $100,000 per unit, that's $3.6 million dollars, the property taxes are going to probably be 30 to $40,000 a year, well, a portion of that can come back to the developer to pay for some of those infrastructure costs until he is recovered his costs on those. And so it's a good program really doesn't cost the taxpayers anything. Because it's all based on the creation of taxes and not taking any of the property taxes that are currently in place. So it's a good program, it encourages development that we badly need. And so he was taking the first step last night with the City Commission next Thursday, they will adopt a resolution to start the process of acquiring that RH ID designation, which is about a 90 day process, it has to be approved by the Kansas Department of Commerce, it is in approved by the city that we have to bring forth the housing study that shows the need, which we have a say that shouldn't be too hard. That's not That's not a tough requirement to meet. And then we have to get that it has to go to the county in the city, or I'm sorry, the county and the school district, both of which have to approve it as well. So it's a process that has to be gone through, but we're confident that it will happen. And we'll see some activity down there sometime in August or September is when the plan would be to start.   James Bell  Yeah, you know, I really like on these deals, it seems like everybody is willing to accept that the RHA D programs are are a necessity. And to me, it's a win win win. Because just as exactly as you say, it's not taking away tax revenue. It's just using that tax revenue to offset the cost of the infrastructure and everybody or nobody's losing any money. It's all it's all net gain.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, that's That's correct. I mean, the only way that you would say that, that it's a loss of any tax revenue is if you think that this developer would do this project without this particular incentive. 99 times out of 100. That's not the case, they would just not do it, because it doesn't make economic sense. So these things have to be put in place to allow them to recover these costs. And these are, these are things that are going to be in existence for decades, you know, the infrastructure, for example, the heart of America Tallgrass addition that those streets and the sewer and the water that'll be in place for a long, long time. And it really cost the taxpayers nothing. Because the development just wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for these incentives. And this this program for the developer to recover some of these costs. So they're good programs. They don't take any existing tax revenue, and they're accomplishing what they're they're set out to do, which is to provide housing in a market in a market that's much needed. And that's why they send in the application to the Department of Commerce, because they assess whether or not you You truly have a housing need. Now we, we can say this is obvious, and it is here. But still they go through the process of making sure that this isn't something that's been given when there really isn't a need for this type of housing.   James Bell  Okay, you know, also we talk a lot about, you know, housing, like homes, but the apartment piece is something I think that it kind of is been maybe overshadowed by that lack of available homes for sale. But this project is just one of many that are going on. And I think if I'm let me check here, oh, yes, the there's over 100 or nearly 100 apartment units that are about to be completed here in Hays, right.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  There are there there are, I think 102 or 104 units that are either currently under construction, or that will be started in the near future. This been 36 of them this project at fourth and fort, of course, right in front of it is the Washington school renovation that Oberlin property group is doing. And that's 14 units. And they're there right at the end of that I believe they're having an open house here in the next week or two,   James Bell  I was gonna say I think I was speaking to somebody in the community not too long ago, who had toured one and said it was just a amazing apartment, maybe a little bit on the pricier side for a college student. But what a great location.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, the good news, I guess for that is that they're not eligible to rent to college students, Oh, those are income regulated apartments and they to hit the income qualified and to hit the price, the demographic that they have to appeal to it's not students that people have to be non students. And they're, they rent below market rate to certain amount, that's one of the factors to that program that the developer has to comply to is they have to rent them below market rent for a certain, I think believe it's 15 years, in order to get the tax credits that they got that allowed them to construct this thing, but I'm eager to see it, I haven't seen it. And that's a great repurpose of a building that in a great location down there by the aquatic Park and that kind of thing that that really should be good. And then there are other projects around town as well, Ellis estates on 33rd Street, that's a project that geared towards retirees and seniors, they've got 42 units under construction, if you've driven over there, as of late, you can see the steel starting to come up out of the ground and a lot of activity over there. And then there's a couple of duplex projects in town going on to so it's over, I counted, it's about 102 or 104 total units going up right now or in the near future will be being built and we we have a strong need for nice apartments in this community, we don't have enough. And consequently, it that does drive rents up, you know, real estate, housing markets are supply and demand based. And when you don't have enough choice, you know, rents go up. If the demand is high, and the supply is low, that's what causes rents to go up. So if we add some supply, it should soften those rents a little bit and give people some choices.   James Bell  It helps to on the the home buying piece, right because those folks that we talked about a little while back about your housing rehab program, and the housing that might be eligible for those programs are just getting rented right now there because there's such a need that they're just rent, they're turning them out. So I wonder if you wanna talk a little bit about that as well how that might affect the overall housing picture?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, you know, when you add inventory to a market, whether it's rental property, whether it's new homes, it does free up other property. And that's the argument that everybody likes to make when they when they say that the $225,000 is not an affordable home. Well, that's very subjective, everybody has a different opinion as to what is affordable. But the reality is, when that $225,000 home is completed, and somebody buys it, they probably have another home, that they're moving out of maybe for 125 or 150, or whatever, they may move out of an apartment that somebody can then rent and that opens up. And so when you add inventory to a market, you soften the pressure on these upward prices of both the cost of housing in terms of buying as well as renting. So inventory added to a market is a very good thing. Now it's it's always a challenge to balance that because you you really have certainly I've been in the other side of that as a landlord and it's not a fun place to be when there's nobody to rent it and rents are continually dropping and and you know that that's you've got a payment to make and you don't have enough rent coming in to make that payment. That's not a good situation. So we strive for that balance but we're way out of balance right now with way too much demand and way too little supply of both apartments and homes.   James Bell  How long you know, with this 100 units coming on, how long will the impact take to really kind of, as you say, you know, soften out even out across the, I don't know, Ellis County, I guess you might say,   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I think that we've got so much pent up demand that it's going to take a while, you know, we've got these 100 units that are going to be constructed. But it's going to take a couple of years to get these constructed. We've got 10 homes in the Tallgrass second edition that are nearing completion. Actually, a couple of them are closing, I think this week, I was told by the builders, the others will be closing pretty quick. And there's another 14 or 15 that are going to be you know, if you go out there right now, there's a lot of dirt flying around because they're digging basements and putting in basements. So there's going to be another 1516 homes constructed in the next six months. So that that will help add to it. But I think we're still a ways away from meeting the demand as well as the opportunity for people who are looking to relocate into our community, we're still not even with all these apartments. And with this construction going on, I don't believe we're still getting to the point where we need to in terms of having sufficient inventory in our market to meet the demand.   James Bell  Yeah, you know, you mentioned those builders, we were Are you are kind enough to host a tour with the city leaders down there. Oh, I think it was maybe two weeks ago now. Yes. And I happen to go down there. And I got to the opportunity to talk to a couple of those builders. And yeah, they were more or less saying many lots as we can get our hands on, we're ready to go.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Yeah, the challenge right now is, you know, we had 36 lots in phase one. And there's 29 of them are spoken being going to be built on right away here. And so we're trying to get the engineering done for the next phase of 18. Lots and hope to start that this summer. But I know we're gonna run out of lots, I can just see that before we can get the next phase up and going. But we're going to try real hard to get there before we do run out. But at the pace of things are going we're going to run out a lot. And then we're going to be wishing we had done more to begin with.   James Bell  Yeah, I'm wondering, you know, I know, there's always stuff bubbling under the surface that you can't talk about, but are there some similar projects kind of in the works or, and I know, there's there's also the private construction going on as well, in Ellis County, right, a little bit of   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  that the challenge with the private construction is that they build one at a time, typically. And this is the first time in, I would say 40 years that I have seen in our community. And I've been here for all of them, that I have seen a builder building at this scale like they're doing in the tall grass edition, you know, we're eight at a time six at a time. We haven't seen that for a long, long time. So we're starting to see some some that are building the way that builders need to, to hit certain price points, you know, they need to build at scale, you build them one at a time. And that that doesn't. You can't get any economies of scale, any efficiency. But if you've got eight of them in a row, you can make a deal with your foundation guy. And he just comes in and does all eight of them in a row. And then your framework follows him man and building more in the way that they do and metropolitan areas. In terms of building scale. Yeah,   James Bell  you know, you drive towards the Denver on i 70 used to see him break rows and rows of these houses, they're cookie cutter, they look exactly the same. Well,   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  not not really what we're after. But we're certainly after, you know, some scalability and getting some inventory to the market. And that to when when you can buy a brand new house for $225,000. That's absolutely going to cause some of the other inventory to have to soften. Just because people always like new. Same with apartments, people like new it makes sellers of homes have to step up their game and maybe do some updates before they sell it makes apartment owners have to clean theirs up and have their you know, maybe do some maintenance things that they don't have to do right now. Because they rent either way, there's no choice. So if we can add some inventory to the market, that will be a very good thing.   James Bell  Yeah, you know, and again, going back to the tour of these houses, I don't think we've got to talk about this yet at least not on air. I was really impressed with the builds on all three but also the take the three builders had were so very different. And it I mean, they're all kind of a similar size. But the very different have a very different personality in the builds. I think   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I agree. You know you've got some with basements, you've got some without, you've got different floor plans different ways they have finished it out. And so and that's great that diversity in the options out there is terrific. That way we can appeal to you know, maybe a family who has a growing family who wants some more room so that a basement might be important for future expansion. They're not finished but at some point in time they can finish the basement and add some additional living space. They're the one the basement houses have egress windows and the things that you would want in a basement but by the same token, the slab homes are all zero entry. So Though if you've got somebody that is older, that doesn't want to deal with steps and that kind of thing, they've, they've got us an option for them too. So lots of options out there. That's going to continue, I think they're going to continue to see some slab, some basements, different types of floor plans, the one thing they all have is at least 1000 square feet and at least a two car garage because we want to get the cars off the street, as opposed to lots of street parking, which makes it a little bit difficult on those streets to go up and down when there's cars on both sides on the street.   James Bell  But again, really good homes and I think, are you planning on another tour out there where people might go check those out in the near future?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I'd like to that I'd love to have a public open house out there. The problem is that they're all sold ahead of time. And so once people are wanting to move in, I hate to traipse people through, you know, three fourths or 90% done house because it's it's hard to see what it's really going to be like when there's no countertops or the flooring in in yet or what have you. But I'd love to get ahead of the game where we could have a public open house and people could really see what's happening out there. Because it's it's pretty cool. I mean, I have not taken anybody in any of those houses out there that have thought that this isn't a good thing. You know, I think everybody that went through from the city, the county or anywhere else school district thought that hey, this is this is badly needed. And this is a great development. Absolutely.   James Bell  Well, Doug, I can tell you, we got to get over the news. But any last thoughts before we go?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I just I just encourage people to drive out by the Housing Development at 22nd. Wheatland and see what's going on because it's impressive. And also keep an eye on these other projects we talked about as they go up because they're going to be exciting. They're going to be great addition star community

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about  the Hays microfactory project.    Transcript: EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.   James Bell  A spark grant from the state of Kansas is going to allow Grow Hays to move forward with their microfactory project. 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  It was an exciting week, the Kansas space grants were awarded on Monday, I believe it was. And the bass stands for building a stronger economy. I believe that this was $100 million, that the state of Kansas was putting out for grants to people who applied and fit their criteria. These are funds that came down from the ARPA, federal funds, post COVID infrastructure type bill. And so the Department of Revenue wrote some specifications for grants that they would be willing to do that they had, I believe it was 417, or over 400 applications totaling 1,000,800,000 1,800,000,000, for this 100 million. So clearly, there was a huge demand. But we were fortunate enough to get a, a grant for microfactory, which we've been working on for a while. And so that was terrific news.   James Bell  Yeah, I want to back this up a little bit, because I do remember, we talked about it on this segment A little while back, but this is one of those projects that I think it was kind of flying under the radar. And I really I kind of want to ask this and not in a bad way. But I don't think this grant we we really didn't expect to get this great. Did we? Well, we always expect well, I know you want the you applied and you hope but   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  You know, we you just never know in these situations, you hope you put forth a good proposal, David Klingon, who is our new Director of Recruitment and retainment put together a great grant proposal explained it very well. And so but you never know, when you send them in, there were at least five grants submitted from Ellis County, we submitted a couple a couple other people submitted a couple. And I think there was one other one that I'm aware of. And this was the only one in Ellis County that was awarded. So we were we were happy about that. In looking at the criteria, it was it was very much economic development driven. And many, many of the applications were infrastructure related streets, roads, that kind of thing. And we put one in for infrastructure as well, and the Tallgrass edition. And it was clear by the awards that they didn't do a lot of infrastructure stuff, they they really narrowed down projects that were economic development related. And that's what this microfactory really is, is a long term economic development engine. We hope it's an incubator for manufacturers. And so I think that's why it received the attention it did and got the award.   James Bell  You know, I want to talk about this kind of a facility in detail, the one that's proposed here, but, you know, this is really something I think that's kind of new to the industry, you run the brief space down there, that co working space and for office, kind of jobs. But, you know, I haven't really heard anything about this kind of a microfactory concept isn't relatively new.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  It is at least as far as I know, I've not seen much of it out there. But it makes a lot of sense. Just like brief space makes a lot of sense. It's an incubator, in this case, and microfactory is an incubator for manufacturers, this, this building will be a 30,000 square foot structure built to the specifications that manufacturers need, you know, tall ceilings, large overhead doors, the opportunity maybe to put in a overhead crane of some sort, or what have you. And this 30,000 square feet will be sliced up in five or six areas of five to six to seven, you know, it might slice and dice a little differently depending on who goes in and what you need. But we will offer it to a small manufacturer or an existing manufacturer who has a new idea and need some space to develop that idea. A small, maybe an inventor who has an idea for an invention but just needs some space, as well as some assistance to bring this product to market. And then the hope is that they they go into this space at a considerably reduced rate of rent, they develop their product, build their business and outgrow it so that we can then build them another building and have them expand into that and then move the next guy in where they were and so that's the concept we're excited about it i think i think it's got good opportunity for the community and and I think it'll be really good.   James Bell  Yeah, absolutely. And I think for Hey, specifically we've talked about this in the past Hays is primarily a white collar economy and this can help maybe drive some of that opportunity space that we're that we have here in the region.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well absolutely Hays in our our three largest employers are the Medical Center, the University and USD 489 Was your primarily white collar office type jobs. We have some manufacturing obviously with inner sis and Hess and cross and size wise and and what Not but we don't have a lot of manufacturing. And this is an area of opportunity for us and an area that we believe we need to grow this part of our economy in an effort to kind of diversify things and have a broader range of of job options in our community. And so this will be a great opportunity to do that. And we need some more manufacturing here. And this, this should we hope, over time, provide that opportunity to grow some manufacturers.   James Bell  Very cool. Now, I know, location, and a lot of the details have yet to be worked out because it really was kind of a conceptual plan when the grant was applied. And now you've got the money now, we have to actually make it go. But I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about some of those specifics on this project that will be the people will see is it's kind of coming to fruition.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Sure. You know, as you say that the easy parts over now we have to actually execute and make it happen. But the proposed location is at the corner of ninth and commerce Parkway, which is just to the south of Glassman Corporation, that's an area owned by heart America development and has had seen some activity out there lately, there's been a couple of lots sell out there. And, and this is on one of those lots that they have available. It's about a five or six acre tract, which will house this structure nicely and would even add allow for some potential additional development of structure if need be. It's it's a great location from the standpoint that it's easily accessible to highway 40. Right down the street is on day 70. So it's a great spot for shipping things in and out and that kind of thing. And, and so we think it's a great spot for it. timeframe, this has to be done, doesn't have to be done. But the guidelines require about two years. So within two years, we need to be have this project completed. That's a bit of a challenge. Because right now as an example, there's about a 12 month lead time on metal buildings. So you know, the process, we've got to get some architectural drawings done. And then we've got to start the construction process bidding on the construction process and things, order the building, put the slab in and those kinds of things. So we'll be busy for the next couple years getting this done. But it's very doable in that timeframe, we just can't doddle on a lot of things.   James Bell  Yeah, and, you know, I'm curious, like, what does that process gonna look like for air review even thought this far ahead. For those people that are interested, you know, like, you know, say, I've got an idea for a new broom, and I want to move out there, what do I do?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, you contact us to begin with that that's the good part of a two year lead time or a 1218 monthly time as well we're constructing the facility, we can be looking for prospective tenants, and they can be ramping up and figuring out how much space they would need. Because in a building like that, you can divide it really any way you want to divide it, it could be, theoretically, if you had the right opportunity, it could be one person could take half of it, I don't see that happening, I'd rather have more small spaces. But when you've got 30,000 square feet, if you've got five, you know, if you divide it up by five, that's 6000 square feet per tenant, which is a fair amount of square footage. So just depends on kind of what happens. But that's that's the as I said, the nice thing is, we'll be able to be looking for those tenants while we're constructing the facility. And really how you how you split it up inside is one of the last decisions you have to make. And you can even leave it open until you have somebody that needs a certain amount of space, and then you just put up a wall. So it's a pretty simple process at that point in time. But so if anybody out there has an idea or is a small manufacturer that needs some additional space and is looking to do some things, we'd love to hear from them, because we'd love to figure out how they might work into this space.   James Bell  Excellent. You know, I'm curious to what about businesses that maybe are looking to relocate to this area? I think about there was a project over in Russell a couple years ago to bring a hemp processing manufacturing, they made the equipment and they were building it there in Russell, is that going to be helpful for those kinds of businesses to move into the region as well?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, certainly could be, you know, a lot of times those people looking to move and make that kind of a move are going to be larger. So they may need more space than what 6000 7000 Square feet might offer. But definitely somebody who's in a community or out in another location that that needs some space and would be willing to relocate. We'd love to talk to them as well.   James Bell  Do you think to that folks might utilize this space as a way to kind of collaborate even like a no. And again, I think I think of that brief space model that co working space and it's such it's such a cool situation that's happening down there as you're seeing more and more businesses that are kind of firmly you know, using that spot, it's not a temporary space, it's their office space. So I wonder if that's gonna happen there as well,   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I think it could I think you could get complementary businesses out there. You know, if you look at to Wichita, which is very heavy manufacturing community because of the aircraft industry and whatnot. There's a lot of small businesses that that make this particular widget for an airplane, and then it has to be attached to this next thing. And there may be two manufacturers side by side who, who work closely on a complementary product. So I could see that happening, for sure.   James Bell  Very cool. And you know, and I think the last piece on this, so we didn't really talk about it's the the funding piece overall, because two and a half or 2.6, from the state that covers a giant portion of the overall cost, but you still got about what 800,000 to go right.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  And we do. And that's going to be the challenge. But we've we're working on making sure we've got that covered, we obviously had to show that we had the funds to do this to cover our match to begin with. And so we've got a couple of sources for that. But we're also exploring other sources. So we've got it in place. But that's not to say that we aren't looking for alternative ways to fund that portion of the project. And, and I think we're, we've got a pretty good story to tell. So I think a couple of our other sources will be helpful to us and bridging that gap and making this happen.   James Bell  Very cool. Well, we've got just about a minute left, Doug, any other last thoughts or anything else you think folks should know about this project? Is it starting to kick off?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, just take watch, we'll keep people posted on our website on Facebook and that type of thing. And in terms of when we get started and where we are in the process. I don't think you'll see a lot of activity on the actual site for a while yet probably six months, maybe but maybe sooner, but just we'll try and keep everybody posted. And obviously if there are prospective tenants out there that are looking for space, and we'd like to utilize this opportunity. We'd love to talk to him.

On this episode of the Post Podcast Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the recently completely Imagine Ellis County town halls meetings that solicted feedback from Ellis County residents about their ideas for the future.

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams, shares information about some of the tax incentive districts used in Ellis County and beyond.

Property valuations in Ellis County along with a proposal from Big Creek Crossing to extend the Community Improvement District there made headlines this week, Grow Hays Executive Director, Doug Williams stops by to talk about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the ongoing work around the I-70 exit 157.

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams discusses workforce shortages in the area.

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams stops by to recap the February 2022 Imagine Ellis County Town Hall meeting.

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares the latest from Grow Hays.   Transcript   James Bell  The economic future of Ellis County is up to all of us, Grow Hays executive director, Doug Williams stops by to talk a little bit about some of the initiatives going on in the area concerning economic development on this episode of the Post Podcast.  The first one I think we want to talk about, and this was this is topical, this came up last night at the city commission work session, they're talking about a sales tax initiative, as part of their bond issue you want to, before we get into it, just tell everybody a little bit if they don't know what what this entails,   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, obviously, the USD 49 is exploring the possibility of a bond issue to build new schools or improve the schools we have. And there are a couple of ways they can pay for that they can do a bond issue, and that can be levied via property tax, or they can do a combination of property tax, and also, with the city's permission, and with the voters' approval, put it out a portion of it on a sales tax. And so they were approaching the city of Hayes about the concept of a half a cent sales tax locally, within the city of Hays or 49. District, I'm not sure exactly how that works. But that would be a half-cent sales tax levied for 10 years. And the proceeds from that sales tax would go towards retiring the bond issue, along with property tax and that kind of thing. And they illustrated what the property tax would be on a typical home in Hays with the sales tax in place, and then without the sales tax in place.   James Bell  Correct me if I'm wrong, but they tried to do this on the bond issue about eight years ago as well. Right. And if I remember correctly, the sales tax piece did pass it but the Bond didn't.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Right. And so it was moot at that point? Because you've with this one the way they explained it last night and I don't want to steal USD 49 stander, I know they come on here as well. But I'm sure we'll be talking the way they explained it last night was it if the sales tax would pass and the bond issue wouldn't, the sales tax would not go into effect. If the bond issue passed, and the sales tax did not the bond issue would still pass and be carried out. And they would build the new schools and make the improvements and that type of thing. So but the sales tax would be conditioned upon the bond passing? Sure.   James Bell  Now, I think we've talked about this enough in the past, I think both of us I think our opinions are pretty clear that generally, whether it be this bond or a different bond or some way or another, we're going to have to fix those facilities. But what I'm curious about is your thoughts on is the sales tax, a good way to do that? Because I think about the trade area or the 1.7 pull or pull factor that we have for the local economy. I wonder, do you think of that impacts that?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I think it is a good way to do it? Does it impact that maybe a little bit. But if you look, the thing you have to look at is regionally how our sales tax compares to other places where people would go and shop. And we're right in line, even with a half a percent bump, we were below our peer communities in western Kansas, in central Kansas, before the city, the county passed their half-cent sales tax that took it from 8.25 to 8.75. This would take it from 8.75 to nine and a quarter. Still within the norm of communities our size, so I don't see a lot of harm in that. And it would soften the blow for the property taxpayers have within USD 489. So I think it's a good way to do it. There will be some complaints from remote areas and local areas. You know, I I just because it's a sales tax doesn't mean you're not going to pay something, you're just gonna pay it in smaller increments and that kind of thing. And so but that, you know, as we've talked many times before, and we will many times in the future until this is playing itself out. We have kicked the can down the road as far as we can kick it in regard to our schools, and we have to do something. And this is a good way to do it. It makes it more affordable for the typical taxpayer. And, and it does spread the cost of those schools over some other communities of which, you know, when we pay our state property taxes here, we pay for other community schools because they get some funding that we don't. So it's not like we're picking on everybody from out of town. We're just kind of leveling the playing field. And I think Ron Wilson pointed that out last night.   James Bell  Okay. You know, I think about too, you know, part of the discussions that I've heard is, you know, the facilities, we don't have the facilities we need to do, you know, tournaments and things where we'd bring groups of people in and those kinds of events. You know, they do have a regional impact. I think about people stopping for gas in Russell or walking on the way here, hopefully, they spend their money here. But you know, they're going to some of those folks hit those little towns coming into Hays. Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  They are and then more people we get into the community for all types of events, the better, you know, potentially fills up hotel rooms that people buy gas, they buy dinner, they maybe go and buy things at Walmart to the mall or wherever they shop and Home Depot. So activity generates additional dollars and facilities help that for sure. And then just the general overcrowding situations we have within our schools right now, you know, we're over capacity in a couple of them. And, and, and the fact that the way people, the way teachers teach and the way kids learn today is much different than the traditional classrooms. And unfortunately, we're still stuck in that traditional classroom mode because of the facilities we have. But yeah, I think I think all of that would add to economic activity for the area.   James Bell  Yeah. And we talked about this in the past, I mean, the economic impact to these bonds is is huge, both on the front end of the people, we can't get into Hayes, because of the status of the facilities or the way that they look. And, you know, into the future, that workforce, the how that all comes together into one thing, and it's all not good if we can't get people here?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, exactly. It's a key component of our economy and our local community. And, you know, we have to make investments. And as I said, Didn't will continue to say, in my opinion, the cost of not passing a bond is far greater than the cost of the bond itself. And I think if we look at what the consequences are if we don't pass a bond and improve our schools, we will suffer accordingly. And it's harder to quantify for sure. But we will suffer and we will end up, in the long run, paying more than what we're paying for the actual bond term.   James Bell   Now, I know I imagine one that this is going to be one of the topics of conversation of this town hall that's coming up on Monday, the Imagine Ellis County, town hall, right, get the right word. But that's gonna be an opportunity for folks to come in and talk about issues like this, right?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  It is, Imagine Ellis County was formed to try and take a look at Dallas County, what we want to look like in 510 2030 years, and to identify areas where we may have some challenges and as well as identify our strengths. And we have spent some time talking to business owners and community leaders, organization leaders as to what their challenges are, and, and obviously, educational facilities come up all the time, as does housing, as does childcare, and workforce and all of those things. But now, we're trying to engage the community members to see if they have any specific thoughts and ideas, basically. And so that's what our town hall meeting is about. We want to share what we have found from the business community and the organizations we have talked to, and then also get feedback from community members as to what they would like to see what their vision might be. And put those two together. So this is our first town hall meeting, we plan to try and have them in Victoria analysis in the coming months. And then we're putting out a community survey this summer, that will try and address some of these issues and get input from the community. And so we're kicking it all off Monday evening from 530 to eight o'clock at the Hilton Garden Inn. And we would like great attendance, we need feedback. So I encourage anybody to attend, we'd like you to register at either our imagine Ellis County Facebook page, we've got a link or the Grow Hayes, Facebook page, or call us or what have you. If you don't get registered, that doesn't mean we don't want you to come because we would like you to come out as well. But we're trying to get a headcount because we're going to feed you.   James Bell  Hey, do you know how many people have signed up already?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I think we're somewhere between 40 and 50. Maybe know something not bad. But we'd love to get 100 people there, we really would we want feedback, the more the better. And you know, no ideas necessarily too small or too crazy. We're trying to keep you know, a blank slate and see what we can come up with. So I would encourage anybody that has an interest in Ellis County in our future to come out and offer their input.   James Bell  Yeah, this is a wonderful opportunity to do so because I can't have you know, all the places I've been over the last, you know, 25 or so years of my professional life. I don't ever remember a community doing something like this, like asking people to come together and tell us what do you want our community to be? And I think that's just huge. And I hope that a lot of people take advantage of this and just breaking down the doors come Monday night to share their ideas and thoughts.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, we hope so too. You know, I think it's important that we get feedback and that people get to give us their thoughts and their ideas as opposed to you know later on saying, well, nobody asked me what we're asking, you know, we want to know. So hope, more people, a lot of people can come out and we look forward to a productive session Monday night.   James Bell  Very cool. And the other thing we want to talk about we hit this up a little bit last week, I think, well, I should, I think it was our main topic of conversation, the housing report that's coming up, you've set a date on that, I believe, of the 15th, that's coming out, right? That's correct.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  And I don't want to oversell this, it scares me a little bit that we've talked about it too much. But this is our just our look at the 2021 housing activity and what happened in our local market in 2021, kind of what's happening so far in 2022. And just comparing it to years past and, and highlighting the fact that this is a serious challenge that we face with housing. Now, the city will be coming out with a housing study, in the next few weeks or months, or sometime here soon that the docking Institute is performed. And that will dig into more of the long-term aspects, it'll look at population trends and that type of thing. And, and our, our report will do a little bit of that, but it'll be more time specific to what's going on right now. And, and in the immediate past. Whereas the housing studies typically look at, you've got this many people in your community, you've got this many homes, if you grow at this rate, you need to build X number of homes and, and that's all valuable information. But it may not be completely applicable to what's going on right at this instant. And so ours is going to look a little closer at that, and try and identify exactly what's happening right now where our shortfalls are and what challenges that's producing because it is producing some significant challenges locally.   James Bell  If I remember correctly, the number was hh 14 houses for sale and I was counting.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  The other day when I checked, there were 12. And five of them were in excess of $499,000. So really seven houses, so seven houses. And so the problem with like reports that look back as an example of Wichita State provides the local real estate, realtors with data. And it will tell you that at the end of last year, there were 40 homes available. Well, the metric they use is either active or active under contract. So at any one time, there may be 20 to 30 homes in our community under contract waiting to be sold or closed. But that doesn't mean somebody coming in today who's going to go out and they want to relocate here and they want to go out and look at homes, they've got basically seven to look at unless they want to spend over $500,000. Now that doesn't count for sale by owners and some things like that. And there are some of those, this is just Multiplus data. But the bottom line is we just don't have any inventory at all. And that's one of the reasons why we're working feverishly out in our Tallgrass edition, you know, with getting some homes built, because for every home out there that's built potentially, somebody buys that and it frees up their house becomes available on comes on the market. And so we have to add inventory that way, and we've got 10 of them under construction out there right now.   James Bell  There's a pretty long waitlist for those already isn't there?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  There's a lot of interest, I'm not sure. The builders, I'm not sure they're really wanting to sell them right away when they're under construction, because that creates a whole set of circumstances where that becomes kind of a custom home. And when you're building at that price point, it's very difficult to do a custom home for that where you start having people that want to change where this wall is, or add this or do this differently. And it becomes much more labor-intensive for the builder. So they're resisting, I think, to some extent, selling them ahead of time. But there's tremendous interest. I've had them tell me 20 3040 people have expressed interest and wanted and, and so we've got 10 under construction, and I think we'll have another 12 Under Construction within 30 to 60 days. So I'm hopeful by year-end, we could have 25 homes available out there and be working on the next phase, which is the streets and the sewer and the water and that kind of thing for the next phase, which would be another 27 to 35 Lots.   James Bell  Wow. Yeah, that'll help. And there's and we talked a little bit about this last week, too. There's some development up north going on private development, as well as I think over-analysis or some homes going up and in a program over there as well. Right.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, we're working on some of those, but there are Ellis estates, I believe that's 40, 32 or 40 units that are going up as an addition to that development and we're still working on our concept for the retiree community north of the hospital on that large tract of ground at that location and, and we feel like that will serve a very critical demographic of 55 and older community. So we have a number of we have an aging population If we don't cater to them with housing solutions for their needs, they're going to go someplace else. And so we want to make sure that we retain those people as well as be attractive to people that are looking to relocate from rural communities, communities or urban areas, that we've got good solutions and housing, it really does all start with housing. If you don't have that, you just can't go on to the next step. You can't recruit, retain or recruit a workforce, you've got to have housing. And so that's why we spend so much time working on it.   James Bell  Okay, Doug, we've got under a couple of minutes left, but I know you've got an article coming out or an article that you're going to send to a he's post anyway, want to talk a little bit about that.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I'll talk a little bit about that. And it's certainly nothing earth-shattering, but it goes to this concept of what we need to be doing here and growth. And I hear a lot of people come to me, I have friends and that kind of thing we like he's just the way it is. And the title of the article is we have to grow to stay the same. And my point in the article is simply our trade area is shrinking. And we're growing at a dismal pace and haze, you know, point one 7% per year, the last from 2010 to 2020. We're not keeping pace currently with even what we're losing in our trade area. So as a community, we have to be really focused on growing our community at a minimum faster than we're losing people in the outlying areas. Now, some of those people are moving here and that kind of thing. And that's all fine. But we need to be cognizant that, you know, Nothing ever stays the same. But in this particular case, if we want to attract new retail, and we want to keep the retail we have and we want to keep a lot of the things that we currently have. We have no choice but to grow and to pick up the pace a little bit and what we have done in the last 10 years. And so we're really focused on that. And that's another reason why housing is so important.

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the upcoming 2021 Ellis County Housing Report.

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.

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares potential impacts of the USD 489 bond issue proposal.   Transcript James Bell  As Hays residents consider another USD 489 bond issue Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams says school facilities are a key factor in recruiting people to the area. He talks to us about that and more on this episode of the Post Podcast.   Doug Williams  Particularly in this day and age where we have lots of people moving around the country. You know, there's studies that say, in the next 10 years, 20 million people will migrate from urban areas to more rural areas. And these are people that can work remotely that have good jobs and have, they're skilled, and they're looking for alternatives other than the rat race in the city. So they're, they're looking at alternatives. And when they look out, across the country, one of the key things that this demographic looks for is schools, you know, when you talk to people, you know, talk to people all the time in urban areas, when they move to a different neighborhood, the first thing they look at, are the schools. Mm hmm. And that's what these people are looking for, as well. And we feel like Hayes has so much to offer. And we've got a great story to tell, until it comes to the physical condition of our schools. I think our quality of education is very good here. But the physical condition of our schools has been neglected for far too long. And so we have no choice but to do something about that. Because we're in a competitive world. And if you look at lots and lots of other communities, they have made the investments in their school systems, and we have not.   James Bell  Yeah, exactly exactly what you're saying. And you know, I think about I saw some comments on when I was on social media. And it was folks basically, kind of lambasted saying that no peep, nobody would make that decision based on the schools, nobody's going to move to Hayes, because we have good schools. But I think to your point, people do make that decision if they're going to move and I think about myself, for example, if I were to leave this job, I would work probably online and could pick anywhere in the world. Anywhere, right? And the schools would be I've got a couple nine year olds and a little one about to get into the school district. That would be the one of the first things I would look at.   Doug Williams  Sure, it's very important. And I think those people who don't think it is, could spend a few minutes talking to the human resources department at Hayes Medical Center, or Fort Hays State University who are trying to recruit health care providers, or college, college professors, or even our school system, trying to recruit or keep teachers, those teachers that do a really great job. How long are they going to stay here, when they have to work in the kind of conditions that some work in and they're really nasty, you know, some of our situations are, are not good at all. And you know that the thing I continue to harp on is, there's a cost of not passing a bond. And I argue that it's far higher than passing a bond. Yeah, you can, you can quantify what $140 million is, and it's X number of dollars for a homeowner per month, blah, blah, blah. It's more difficult to quantify the cost of those lost opportunities, those people that didn't come to our community, those businesses that maybe chose not to expand here, because we don't have the type of school system that can recruit people to our community for labor force and that kind of thing. So there's a high cost of not doing what we need to do, not to mention the fact that it gets more expensive every year.   James Bell  Yeah, and this is something I've shared, we were talking a little bit about this right before we went on air too. And I've shared this story, one of the initial bond issue, guys that was helping spread the word on this one on room when the first bond issue went through seven, eight years ago now. But that's exactly what his point was. He was he was a conservative guy. And he said, Look, I don't like spending money, and I don't want to increase my taxes, not one penny, but every year we wait, it just is going to cost us more. And that's what we've seen. So the bond issue then was I think about 108 100 9 million, and now it's 143, I think is the lowest of the three points, I could have that wrong. But that's an increase in materials cost and the cost of labor and all that, etc. associated expenses.   Doug Williams  What absolutely is, you know, I've lived here all my life. And I remember the bond issues that they attempted to pass in the 60s and 70s. And I believe there were four failed attempts before they passed the $5 million bond to build Hayes high to give you some idea of what cost to the bond that built Hayes high and I think 1978 is when they passed the bond was $5 million. But through the 60s and early 70s, they had a number of failed attempts. And if you go back and look at the plans of the original high school they were going to build It's incredible what it contained. But then we went through the inflationary 70s And that kind of thing. So what we ended up with at the time was was nice, but it cost a lot more in the end than what that initial bond issue cost would have been. Had they has to the first go around. And we're kind of in the same situation now, and certainly in an inflationary time, there's all indications that, you know, we're dealing with some inflation, for sure, and materials and that type of thing. And so, to wait, it's just going to cost more later. And I continue to say, schools are critical infrastructure, no different than roads, no different than a sewer, plant water lines, you've got to invest in those things, if you want to have a productive community, and it affects all aspects of the community, seniors, young families, singles, you know, our local economy will suffer, if we don't invest in our schools and our infrastructure.   James Bell  You know, one of the big things that we spoke earlier with on the morning show here earlier this week, and with our USD 49, report, we talked about the space. And I think that's another key component of this is, you know, our schools right now are basically maxed out with the number of children we can get in them. And if we want to have any sort of growth, we're gonna have to put those kids somewhere.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  That's exactly right. If you look at them and that's, that's my real challenge, my frustration with some of the social media things is that people don't look at the numbers, they just kind of spout off. And don't, don't think this through or don't educate themselves, because I've heard him say, you know, hey, size, enrollment is dropping? Well, that's not true at all, if you look at the numbers, and if you look at the capacity that was designed for, were about 150 kids over what it was designed to hold. And we think we're going to have some growth, we want to have some growth, no, we're not going to be Denver, or, you know, a large urban area, but we want consistent steady growth in our community, we need to have it if we're going to be the type of community that we'd like to have. And so space is a huge issue. And we've got to deal with that somehow or another.   James Bell  Yeah, you know, you can I know one of the big arguments that I hear pretty frequently against the bond issues has been, well, we didn't take care of it the way we should have. And I think there is some we've talked about that a little bit in the past, there's, there's some truth to that, but the space thing you can't get around it, there's no other way. And you know, I've seen it, and I always encourage people to go into the schools and check it out yourself. I've seen the lunch rooms, as they're shifting around at 1015. In the morning, I've seen, you know, teachers teaching out of closets. And that's just not a good, you know, again, a should go back to your point earlier, those educators I think, are gonna be really questioning the decision, do I want to stay in this district, and you know, you teach in a closet for two, three years in a row? I think anybody to have that kind of mindset.   Doug Williams  Sure. And we live in a society where talented people have lots of choices. You know, we're in a tight labor market all across our country. And if somebody is a good teacher, they can go get a job anywhere, you know, they can, they can teach wherever they want. So if they don't have a decent, good conditions with which to teach, they're going to go someplace else. And they and the whole, you know, they didn't handle the funds appropriately before, you know, I don't know, maybe they did. Maybe they didn't, I suppose there are some arguments that they made poor choices in the past where they spent the capital outlay money and that kind of thing. But that's irrelevant. Today. I think we have a good school board, I think with this vision committee is committed a large group of committed smart people. I think our USD 489 staff is smart, committed people, we got to trust them. You know, at some point in time, we can't be sitting back playing armchair quarterback all the time and saying we should do this, you should do that. When you don't really understand the situation. You know, we've got to trust these people that they're telling us the right thing and that they have the community and the school district's best interests in mind. And we need to act.   James Bell  Yeah. You know, I'm glad you mentioned that, because that's one of the things that I think in this particular conversation, I've seen that this seems to be going well, is that a lot more people are involved. And they're interested in like, there was a bond meeting a couple of days ago, there was a fairly substantial crowd. And I remember in the first bond issue, you know, again, 578 years ago, you go to those meetings, and there'd be nobody there literally nobody. So I'm curious, you know, what you're hearing from, like business leaders about that, you know, is the tide kind of turned a little bit? Are more people supporting this? Or is it still going to be an uphill battle?   Doug Williams  I think it has turned to some extent, I think that the real challenge I have seen in the past is that I don't think anybody disagrees that we need a bond. I mean, I say nobody there there are those out there that disagree and are not going to vote for it under any circumstance. But I think it has turned I think people recognize that we do need a bond. And most of what I hear is positive. So I think we are headed in the right direction, at least I hope so. You know, you're always going to have a vocal minority are going to voice their opinions and that's great. That's what this country saw about. But I think by and large people recognize the need and We this time I hope is different and I hope we can get something done. It's critical to our future that we do.   James Bell  Okay. Well, before we run out of time, there's one other thing we want to talk a little bit about today. And that's some construction going on out towards, well, gosh, I don't know the roads but out east of town.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Commerce Parkway.   James Bell  There you go.   Doug Williams  Heart of America has a development near Commerce Parkway, where Glassman climate control is that area behind Glassman climate control on Ninth Street out there. That is been out there for a long time, 20 years 20 plus years with some lots and things out there for commercial development. And we've had two lots sales in the last few months to local businesses who are going to do expansions out there. And we've got some interest in a third lot for a potential construction project for some factory microfactory project. And so some good activity out there good to see some local businesses, make investments and expand. And I think there'll be 2022, you'll see a lot of activity out there that be to the east of where Glassman Corporation is just off of commerce Parkway. So that's good news. Great to see.   James Bell  Yeah, absolutely. You know, I wonder he, when businesses make that move, you know, and that's I don't know, that's out of city limits, right. Is there a is there an impact to like tax revenues or anything like that to be concerned about? Or is this is an all kind of good thing? Because it really it's not like a big move. It's in an expansion, of course, is always a good thing.   Doug Williams  Well, expansion is good. And let me correct. That is in the city limits. So okay, that is annexed into the city, they do have access to city services, water, sewer, that kind of thing. Fire protection. So that is why they made that decision where they're going is it isn't a city. Gotcha. So it's all positive from that standpoint, because both of these organizations operate in existing buildings that pay property taxes. They're building new buildings, which will add property tax revenue to the tax rolls. So it's all good. Plus, I'll expand and employ more people. So I don't see any downside to this one.   James Bell  Okay, win, win, win. Love that. Are you gonna tell us the businesses. You can't tell us, can you?   Doug Williams  I will soon, not right now.   James Bell  You always have the best information is what you can't share.   Doug Williams  Always.   James Bell  Love it. Well, it's very good to hear that, you know, that's happening. And I love seeing expansion out there. Because, you know, to me, that's one of those areas, one of those regions that can really use that it's kind of underdeveloped, I think and you know, and I didn't realize that had been out there that, that for that long,   Doug Williams  It has been that those lots were developed quite some time ago, and it's time there was some expansion out there. It's a good spot with, as I said earlier, it's in the city limits. It's got access to city utilities. Part of America also owns 32 acres directly to the east of where these are. So the game plan would be just continue going east and find some other organizations to either come in or expand out there and keep it going.

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams talks about the organization's recent 2021 recap.

On this episode of the Post Podcast Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams talks about a $50,000 donation from the Schmidt Foundation given to the Imagine Ellis County committee.   TRANSCRIPT   James Bell  The Imagine Ellis County committee recently benefited from a large donation from the Schmidt Foundation, Grow Hays, Executive Director, Doug Williams talks to us a little bit about that, and more on this episode of the post podcast. Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, it's a committee that was formed out of the strategic doing initiative that is kind of town meetings sponsored by the danger Hansen Foundation, where people in the community come together for kind of a town hall meeting and talk about things that they'd like to see happen in their community, whether it be parks, you know, recreational type things, business type things, all types of things. And then out of that, committees are formed. And they kind of work on these initiatives. And so one of the things that came out of this strategic doing session was imagined Ellis County, you know, what, what do we want Ellis County to look like, five years from now 10 years from now, 30 years from now. And so that's kind of what this committee has been working on. We started and then boom, the pandemic hit. And so we kind of lost our momentum for the committee. But as of late, we have, we have kind of picked up the momentum again, and we're starting to work on some things, and we've got some direction. And I think we're making good headway. James Bell  Excellent. Yeah, it seems like, you know, when it comes to planning, you have to think so far in advance that and I wonder if you want to speak a little bit to like, is there a lot of differing opinions? Or are we kind of seeing some consensus? And some, you know, cuz, I don't know, some general ideas moving forward. Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I think, you know, we, we interviewed, we had all a number of business leaders come forward, you know, business owners come forward and give us a five minute presentation as to what their plans were and what their challenges are. And, obviously, they're all a little bit different. But there's certainly some recurring themes among all of their discussions and things like housing, things like child care, you know, those kinds of things continually come up workforces a huge one, which is kind of tied to childcare and housing as well. So while each organization has some specifics, the underlying themes are very much, you know, you hear the same things again, and again. James Bell  You know, I wonder going forward how, how do these committees or these groups, you know, after I problems have been identified, how do they affect change? Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, you know, you, you identify the problem, and then you work the problem. So it's, you know, housing is been a problem in Hays, I've, we talked about it all the time, you and I, and I talked about it with lots of people. But at some point in time, you have to quit talking and start doing and that's what we're trying to do with the project, the tall grass project out of 22nd. Wheatland with the retiree. project that we envision north at the hospital, as well as trying to help some people with some construction of apartments and that type of thing. The project analysis for the 40 lots in south Ellis, you know, those are the type of things that you have to start doing and then childcare the same way you've got to, okay, identify the problem, and what can we do about it? James Bell  Okay, it's feeding on the housing. No, real quick, we might have talked about this yesterday that we just had the Hays City Commission folks in with us, but they passed the RHID public meeting date was speaking of the housing piece, how does that kind of work into how this committee is getting put together? You know, if they want to help, I don't know, spread the word for that or become available, I guess you might say, for the community that wants to talk about this project. Well, that's Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  That's the type of project that this committee would support. And go to the City Commission and the commissioners individually and indicate the support for those types of projects for the city to approve, you know, those type of incentives for the developer. Because the the reality is, in some cases, the marketplace, we'd all like to think that the open market always meets a need, but it doesn't. And it doesn't always meet it in a timeframe that is that the community needs it to meet it in childcare would be a good example of that as well. So that this committee will focus on. Okay, what what type of housing do we need? How do we help get that done? How do we encourage the city to award incentives to potential developers to make it attractive for them to develop in Hays instead of someplace else? And so that's the type of work that we would do on housing initiatives. And that's what this committee will be focused on things along those lines, along with many others, you know, that could be parks, it could be retail recruitment, you know, they're just this good go a lot of different directions as we, as we try and figure out what we really want a Hays to look like one of the things we're going to do is a community survey. You know, we, while we have a broad representation of the community, we believe on our committee, and we've talked to lots of business people who have a broad understanding of what's going on in the community, at some point time, you need to go out and ask the citizens, what they would like to see. And so we've got a quote from the Docking Institute, and we're attempting to raise some funds. So we can conduct that survey and ask the public what they'd like to see in the community, what kind of community they want to do, what they want the community to look like, in 5, 10 or 20 years. James Bell  How do you deal with all the folks and not to disparage any particular business? I know one of the things that I hear a lot come to Hays is target. Everybody wants to target here, and it would be great. But how do you kind of temper those expectations when you have a survey like that, and and you get responses that say 60, 70 80 percent want that, but it's really not feasible for the Hays market? Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, I think you have to temper it with the understanding of what these companies requirements are in terms of population in a community, you know, they require 40,000 people in a community and we have 28, we really can't spend a lot of time talking to them. Now, yes, we want to, we would like to think we're a little bit different than we are from a trade area standpoint, we have a larger trade area, then then a lot of communities and we have pull factor that a lot of communities don't have, you know, where people come from outlying areas to shop. But these companies study very closely. Excuse me, the the market conditions that exist, the population, the amount of dollars that are spent, they know, I would guess the target knows very well what Walmart sales are here. And so they know what level of sales they would be able to attract here. And so we have to have realistic expectations and think that okay, target may not be a good fit, but who is and then we go focus on that particular company to recruit as opposed to a target, just as an example. Okay. James Bell  Well, the one thing that I think all of these efforts require a little bit of capital. And this donation is probably going to help you with that. I would imagine when I talk first, a little bit about the gift from the Schmidt Foundation, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Yes, well, we, the Schmidt Foundation was good enough to recognize that the this is an important initiative in the community to to get this going. And obviously, if we're going to recruit people, and figure out what we need to be doing, it does take some dollars. And the Schmidt Foundation was good enough to give imagine Ellis County a $50,000 donation to be used for the projects that we're envisioning. One would be the Community Survey. Another would be we produce some videos of our community, we've got, I think, four or five different videos are short, one minute videos about our quality of life, basically, why people live here, we've targeted different types of people in the community in terms of younger people, retired people, people who move back here, people who moved here and bought a business. And so we're trying to tell the story in a lot of different ways about why Ellis County is such a great place to live. And the next step with once you produce these videos, and they're great videos, we'll get them out there so people can see them in the very near future. But we got to get enough people in the right places to see him. So we've gotten some proposals from some marketing organizations as to, we can do these types of social media marketing and things in the eastern slope of Colorado, which is kind of a ripe area for people who are wanting to relocate.  James Bell  Can't imagine why prices, you want to read one bedroom apartment, it's four or $5,000 a month, very Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Expensive to live in very, the traffic is horrible. And in a lot of people out there looking for a simpler life and a more cost effective life. And we think housing prices are high here. Just go out there. Yeah. But so we're going to be targeting those marketplaces and trying to get our story told in the right places, and you need funding to do that. It's it doesn't come for free. And so the Schmidt Foundation, which is terrific. I mean, they're wonderful organization, very supportive of our community and always have been very supportive of grow Hayes, was good enough to step forward and give this $50,000 donation. We're seeking some other grants for the same type of thing so we can expand our efforts in this marketing of Ellis County, and that's a great start with what the Schmidt Foundation was willing to step up and give us. James Bell  Yeah, that's very cool. And you know, it does really, I think, impact those that recruitment has But also, you know, the piece on this that I think maybe people don't realize is how quickly those dollars get eaten up. When you're talking about marketing, it's so expensive. Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  It really is, I mean, the production of the videos, you know, doesn't seem too bad. But then you've got, and I'm not, I'm far from an expert on these things, but geo fencing and all of these terms that come up and, and Google search engines to optimize those. So your Sir, your information comes up when a search is done, just on and on and on. It's very expensive. And, but we're looking at a combination of social marketing, even some billboards, different types of ways to reach people, because we know not everybody's walking around with a smartphone, we recognize one demographic that we think we offer a lot to our retirees, with the health care facilities we have here, as well as a safe community and a lot of the other amenities we have. And so we we have to figure out ways are our marketing people have to figure out ways to target that audience, make sure they know who we are and what we have to offer. So, but it all costs money. And that's the that's for sure. James Bell  Is there going to be any of it set aside to help spread the word locally? About the committee? Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Yeah, we're, we're we're doing we're hoping we're doing some of that by talking to people like you. And we have set up a Facebook page, we haven't done much with it, but we will be setting up a Facebook or a meta page, whatever he called today. And in some other efforts will be done for local marketing as well. You know, we'll try and, and spread the word locally, because you know, word of mouth is the best advertising you can have. And obviously, the people in Ellis County, if they can talk to the people they know outside of Ellis County, tell our story. Tell people where to go to watch these videos, or to see what imagine Ellis County's doing. At the Imagine Ellis County website, which will be developed it isn't there yet. But it will be. So that's that's another way where we'll reach out to people and and you bring up a good point. I mean, the best salespeople, for any community are the people that live in the community. James Bell  Absolutely. The Shifting gears a little bit. We always like talking about what's going on down there. aggro Hayes, we've got just a few minutes left. I want to pretend like I don't know what's going on. But you have had the Ice House series entrepreneurship class that's wrapping up next Wednesday. Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Yes. James Bell  Cool class, because I'm in it. You know, cuz I'm in it. I'm a it's a I know, it's a cool class, because when you can get the points to graduate, we're not sure about you.  Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Yeah, it's if I throw a real stick in the mud, I think a lot of times because I'm not the business entrepreneur, you know, I'm not out there trying to launch into a successful enterprise, you know, what might happen? Well, that's exactly the thing. And that's one of the things I really appreciate about this is it's not it's not what I was expecting going in, which was that real that you know, concrete, Do this, do this, do this. It's more about opening your eyes to possibilities, A little bit more theoretical, I think, probably and covering the, the traits of an entrepreneur and the things that an entrepreneur needs to think about. We are next week, it'll wrap up, that'll be week seven. We've got I think, 12 or 13 participants. So it's a couple online, so I you know, I've done online attendance. So I'm, I get a little fuzzy, I see the people in the room, but I forget about the ones that are online, and spent a good class different than the class we did a year and a half ago, you know, a different set of people kind of a different dynamic in the class. And that's okay, that's good. And I you know, we typically try and bring in a speaker from outside last week, we had Chris Munch come in and give his sticks presentation, which is always good and powerful. Presentation. And they've, they've talked me into giving a little talk next week, which should be interesting. It's, I'll keep it a top secret topic. But all I'll be there to wrap the whole thing up and then you guys will be graduated and we'll be on to the next one. But it's it's a really good class. I think it it makes you think, and hopefully get you thinking outside the box. And if you have some entrepreneurial, yearnings, it is an opportunity to understand what it might be all about and the things he maybe need to put in place in order to fulfill those dreams or yearnings or whatever they are. Absolutely. James Bell  And you know, to I think in a lot of ways, it just it also kind of opened your eyes to the realities in the marketplace now, because it's quite a bit different than for a lot of folks than it was 3040 years ago where you went on a career path and that was the expectation and that's just not necessarily the case anymore.  Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you look at the trends and the number of job changes, people entering the workforce today will have over their career, you know, used to be you go to work for the railroad or IBM or somebody and you stay with them for life. That's just not the way it works. Now, it's people changing all the time. And I've, I've noticed that you know, another topic we talked about, we're we're currently we accepted applications for Director of Recruitment and retainment. And we cut those applications off last Friday, but if you look at some of the end, we've had 19 and all of them good people and that kind of thing. But if you look at the work history, people change a lot. It's amazing how often a lot of people change. And I'm not saying that's bad, it's just the way our world works right now is there's a lot of movement that goes on in careers. James Bell  Absolutely. Well, Doug, we've got just about a minute left anything else going on down there you want to share with us Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  We've got one thing I would mention, you know, advanced real estate had sold their location on East 27th street and are now full time officing out of brief space so it's cool it's kind of interesting turned down there you know, we we have always said that we believe that it can be an alternative office space and most people we have are individuals and that that come in there at certain times and off and on and on the road salespeople or what have you, but this is a case where a business has looked at our environment and said hey, you know, we can carve out this little spot for ourselves. It works for us we have access to the high speed internet to the meeting rooms and copier, scanner all of those kinds of resources and so at a fraction of the cost that it was where they were located before So that's been an interesting development down there we welcome that we welcome others and it's kind of cool to see that happen. James Bell  Yeah, I you know, I love about brief space down there is a you you kind of get that environment I imagine if you're working on your own you know, your sole proprietorship you know you don't get that interaction with other business professionals or you can do that it brief space, you can go in and get in amount of interaction that you want, whether it be a little bit or a lot, you hang out there all day or hang out there for 20 minutes, make your do your whatever and then go. Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Yeah, it it's whatever. It's what you make of it really and but but there is interaction with others. I think that's an important part of it. It's just been interesting to see that kind of evolution in the facility to have somebody in there grow. Hays has always been in there but now we've got another full time scenario as well as multiple people so I have a cool trend.

On this episode of the Post Podcast Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares an analysis of the Hays city commission and USD 489 Board of Education election forum.   Transcript Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, you know, the topics, what was interesting to me is that the school or the city commission, candidates talked a lot about school bond, and educational facilities, you know, usually that would not be on their radar. And I think that shows the the importance of what is going on and the need in our community that we have to improve our educational facilities. You know, we've talked lots of times, and I always like to make sure that we understand completely that we do a great job of teaching kids here, we have great teachers, and we have great outcomes. And but they're doing.   James Bell  Blue Ribbon School.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Absolutely. I mean, we have a lot to be thankful for and be proud of in our educational system. But unfortunately, they do it with one hand kind of tied behind their back when it comes to facility quality. And we have we have neglected this for about as long as we can. And it it became apparent, both in the forum for the city commission candidates as well as the USD 489 candidates that that schools have to be a high priority in our community, if we expect to have any hope for growth and to put our best foot forward and to do a good job of educating our kids.   James Bell  Yeah, absolutely. I know, we've talked about this in the past, too, but it's also a factor for, you know, deciding to live here, whether it be in Hayes, or Ellis Ellis has a bond issue currently that they're discussing as well, kind of tackling the same problems.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Yes, it's a quality of life issue. It's a recruitment issue for people who are considering relocating here, you know, whether it's a doctor or a nurse considering going to work for Hays Medical Center, or a company that's looking to relocate here, one of the main things a retail company will look at in a community is housing, and your education system, because they're going to move people here, they want to attract people to work for their businesses. And if those two things aren't in place, they're not going to choose to locate here. So we've got a, we've got a, we haven't done what we need to do in that area. And we really have to at this point in time, I liken it to, you know, if you've got a road that comes into your town, and it's the only way into your town, you've got to maintain that road, and there comes a point in time, if you have some growth, you've got to make it wider. And, you know, if you don't, people aren't going to come to your town and I view education facilities, you know, basically as critical infrastructure kind of like that road, we have to maintain them, we have to expand them when at certain times if we expect to grow and prosper and be an attractive community.   James Bell  Yeah, and something we've talked about the past is, you know, while we talk about these facilities, and in there need to be either repaired, replaced, etc. One of the things that, that I think a lot of people have come to realize is it's not necessarily an issue of we weren't taking care of the facilities, they are just aging out.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, there's a little of both. I mean, I think over time, you know, there was discussion with the 489 candidates about the capital outlay account, and there's a certain percentage, I think 6% or eight, six Mills or eight Mills per year is to go to capital outlay and that hasn't always been appropriated to capital outlay, you know, previous boards and administrations have chosen to use that in some other ways. When they had funding shortfalls. In other areas. They took some of that capital outlay money and reallocated it to other areas, sometimes I think, maybe salaries or some different things there. I don't think they're doing that now they've re committed that that funding to capital type projects. But the point being, we haven't passed a significant bond since 1978.   James Bell  Which is highly unusual. Typically these cycle around 10 years if I remember correctly.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Ten to 15 years typically, you if you go around to communities all across the state, you will see virtually all of them with more modernized facilities than we have in USD 489. And, you know, it's just been too long, there was a there was a bond passed in, I think the early 90s for some HVAC, at maybe the high school or someplace else. But beyond that we haven't passed a significant bond for significant improvements for 40 years. And we're we're long overdue, and we just have to make these investments on occasion. And, you know, the first bite of the apple is a tough one to take, because that's where we experience the cost. Once you have a bond in place, and you're paying for it over time, you can add to that bond later without changing the monthly financial outgo. It's, so we've got to take this first step. Yeah, that's the tough one. But the reality is, it really isn't a choice anymore, I know it's going to be a vote, I know people are going to have a choice. But I continue to say you're going to pay it one way or the other, you're going to pay it through the taxes that will need to be generated to pay those payments on a bond, or you're gonna pay it because of lost opportunity and growth and shrinking tax base where your taxes go up anyway, because you have not grown your tax base, and you've got fewer and fewer taxable assets to spread that over. So we just have to do this, it's not really an option anymore, in my opinion.   James Bell  Okay. You know, I'm wondering, without asking you to speak for any of the candidates that were there, you know, on the city candidate side, does it did it feel like that generally, everybody's kind of in support of some sort of bond?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Sure seemed like it to me, I think every I think every candidate came out and said that they believe that this is something that needs to happen. And some of them had it as a higher priority than others. But I think all of them collectively believe that a bond is critical to the future of our community.   James Bell  Very good. And I did not exclude the school board candidates, but I believe I'd read at this point that they had all stated some support for bond as well,   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  I believe that's true, they did you know, the challenge is what type of bond, how big, what's it going to include, and that's where that's where you start running into the trouble. And I've told a lot of different people. You know, I've had people tell me, if this bond includes a new building, I'm not going to vote for it, because I want to remodel the old ones. Or if it includes the closing of a particular school, I'm not going to vote for it. And, and we need to get over that we need to understand that we we need to support, there's a group in place that's trying to develop the best possible way forward, we need to support their decision, you know, they're not going about this lightly, they're not going to, you know, they're not making crazy recommendations, they're looking at what's best for our community, they're taking their time, and they're, you know, putting their expertise into it. And we need to be supportive of that, even though it may not have either everything we had or maybe a little bit different than something that that we think it should have, we need to understand that it's for the benefit of the overall and that's why we need to support what this group comes up with.   James Bell  Very good, you know, now moving a little bit away from the education piece of you know, housing, and some we talk about a lot. I wonder if you want to share some some thoughts there as well?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, they obviously housing continues to be a critical factor. I talked to a realtor yesterday, and there's 31 homes in the market in Hays, and then very, very few in Ellis of Victoria, there's just no inventory to choose from. And that's our Achilles heel as well as the educational facilities. We're trying to get some things done on that, you know, we've got our RHID project east of the Technical College, there's four homes that have broken ground out there, they're still you can't see him coming up out of the ground yet. That's where where I want to get to the point where you can see actual progress, you know, sticks coming up out of the ground, they're doing foundation work, pouring slabs. But very quickly, you will see things coming up out of the ground. But I think what we need to understand is that this while we're taking proactive measures to deal with some of this, we're still way behind. And if you look at the housing need for a community like Hays, we haven't built enough homes for the last 10 years in a year to what we really need. And so we're, we're well behind what we need. And if we would like to have some growth, which we think there's opportunity for we're not we're gonna have to step it up not only make up that past shortfall, but get ahead of the game on how many we build each year. And we need both homes and we need apartments and market rate apartments and that type of thing. So we're constantly working on trying to promote that in the community. I think we've got some good things going on with the development east of the Technical College, the Heart of America development in the retiree community we're talking about and then we're also talking to some developers on some apartment complexes and that kind of thing. So I think we've got some things in the works. Unfortunately, they just take a while to come together.   James Bell  You know, I'm curious, you know, even if someone were to be elected to the city commission, or the school board, I suppose you could say either one and, and really want to push that agenda of getting the more housing into Ellis County? How much power? Do they actually have to do that? Or is that better suited for an organization like yourself?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, I think both, I think they have power to do that, in a couple of ways. One is they fund organizations like ours, which we go out, and we try and make these things happen. So that's critical. And then the other is that they they offer some incentives for developers to build these projects. You know, that's, that's the city, the also the, the county participates in those incentives and the school district, in the case of the RHID project, the Heart of America development, you know, the city approved that RHID, but then the county and the school board both had the option to veto it if they wanted to, because they're both affected by the taxes that they do not receive on that project for 25 years, or until the investor gets his infrastructure costs back is how that works. And so they're critically important, both in the funding of organizations like Grow Hays and the approval of incentives.   James Bell  Okay. And again, you know, I don't want you to speak for any of the candidates. But did you hear anything? That was either surprised you, I suppose, to the the high end support side or to the I don't think this is a good idea to support those kind of programs from any of the candidates?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Not really, I, you know, I think that there's Hays from a city commission standpoint, Hays has traditionally been quite conservative in the use of incentives. And I think this commission now recognizes that, while they don't want to just openly give away the farm, so to speak, they understand that that's the way the game is played. That's what you have to do to be competitive. And so I don't think any of them feel like, No, I don't want to do that, or that's a bad idea. Or we should only do this in dire circumstances, I think they're proactive in what they want to do, in terms of the use of incentives, they want to be responsible. But I believe that their mindset is where it needs to be in offering this to prospective developers and helping the community get some of these projects going, which it takes these incentives to do.   James Bell  Okay, Doug well, got just a couple of minutes left, we want to shift gears and talk a little bit about something we talked about, I think, a couple weeks ago, you've got a new position that you've opened up down there, it's the director of retirement and recruitment, or maybe recruitment and retainment, there you go. But today is the last day for that those applications to come in.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  That's correct, we are we are closing the receipt of applications. As of today, we've had overwhelming interest, which is terrific, awesome, we've got I think, 17 applications we've received. So that's terrific, we've got some great applicants, you know, the, the hard part now is going through, there deciding who is the best fit for the position, and then telling 16 people that we chose somebody else. That's the difficult part. But we've got some great applicants, hoping to get a few more before the end of the day. And looking forward to we're gonna take a couple weeks to go through the applications and then start interviewing some people and then hopefully make a decision in early November on that position and get somebody started. So we can start a more proactive effort in recruitment, as well as retainment of the businesses that we have.   James Bell  Very cool. How long after someone gets into that role do you expect cuz I mean, there's always a training period with a new job no matter what the job is, but how long until we start to see, you know, I don't know if this is the right word, but results from the new position,   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  That results word.   James Bell  Return on investment.   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well, you know, probably six months to a year, economic development is challenging because it is a slow moving process. And but, you know, we're adding this position because we want more focus in that area. And we want results. And you know, I, when I went before the city Commission and the county commission and ask them for additional funding for 2022 for this position, you know, I said, we need to produce results. And sometime in 2022 or early 2023, we need to be able to come forth and say, This is what we have accomplished. And along the way we need to be able to tell him what we're doing. Now, this is who we've talked to, these are the efforts we've gotten placed into the programs that we're working on with existing businesses on succession planning and on helping them with any expansion plans they have, you know, we need to be a value to the city, county those who find us are private investors and offer a return on investments exactly as you say, and that's what we intend to do.   James Bell  Excellent. Well, Doug, we've got to get over to news but good luck with the search. Any last thoughts real quick before we go?   Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams  Well just Hays High Homecoming this weekend. As an old Hays High guy. I welcome everybody back and hope it's a safe and, and happy homecoming.

On this episode Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares the latest from the ongoing development at the intersection of the Hwy. 183 Bypass and Interstate 70.