grow hays
grow hays
Friday Apr 01, 2022
Tax incentives explained
Friday Apr 01, 2022
Friday Apr 01, 2022
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.
Thursday Mar 24, 2022
STICKER SHOCK: Housing valuations cause concern for area residents
Thursday Mar 24, 2022
Thursday Mar 24, 2022
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.
Friday Mar 04, 2022
Infrastructure around I-70 exit key to development
Friday Mar 04, 2022
Friday Mar 04, 2022
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.
Friday Feb 18, 2022
Enticing workforce back to the market relies on diverse factors
Friday Feb 18, 2022
Friday Feb 18, 2022
On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams discusses workforce shortages in the area.
Friday Feb 11, 2022
Imagine Ellis County town hall provides insight into county’s future
Friday Feb 11, 2022
Friday Feb 11, 2022
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.
Friday Feb 04, 2022
More housing vital to the long term economic health of Ellis County
Friday Feb 04, 2022
Friday Feb 04, 2022
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.
Monday Jan 31, 2022
Upcoming report to highlight ongoing housing shortage in Ellis Co.
Monday Jan 31, 2022
Monday Jan 31, 2022
On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the upcoming 2021 Ellis County Housing Report.
Friday Jan 21, 2022
Friday Jan 21, 2022
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.
Friday Jan 07, 2022
USD 489 bond issue to impact more than education
Friday Jan 07, 2022
Friday Jan 07, 2022
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.
Thursday Dec 23, 2021
Grow Hays hosts 2021 wrap up
Thursday Dec 23, 2021
Thursday Dec 23, 2021
On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams talks about the organization's recent 2021 recap.
Monday Nov 01, 2021
Foundation donation to benefit Imagine Ellis County
Monday Nov 01, 2021
Monday Nov 01, 2021
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.
Friday Oct 15, 2021
Williams: School bond and housing important topics for upcoming election
Friday Oct 15, 2021
Friday Oct 15, 2021
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.
Friday Oct 08, 2021
Development around I-70 exit 157 continues
Friday Oct 08, 2021
Friday Oct 08, 2021
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.
Tuesday Oct 05, 2021
Grow Hays seeks director of recruitment and retention
Tuesday Oct 05, 2021
Tuesday Oct 05, 2021
On this episode of the Post Podcast Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the search for the new director of recruitment and retention.
Friday Sep 17, 2021
City commission hears incentive district request
Friday Sep 17, 2021
Friday Sep 17, 2021
On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the request for a Rural Housing Incentive District for a downtown Hays project.
Sunday Sep 12, 2021
Construction begins at Hays housing project
Sunday Sep 12, 2021
Sunday Sep 12, 2021
On this episode of the Post Podcast Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about ongoing housing projects in Hays.
Monday Sep 06, 2021
Grow Hays director Doug Williams shares updates on local development
Monday Sep 06, 2021
Monday Sep 06, 2021
On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares updates on commercial and infrastructure development in the area.
Friday Aug 27, 2021
Grow Hays fosters entrepreneurship with upcoming events
Friday Aug 27, 2021
Friday Aug 27, 2021
On this episode of the Post Podcast Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about upcoming Grow Hays events.
Friday Aug 20, 2021
Census data highlights growing economic concern
Friday Aug 20, 2021
Friday Aug 20, 2021
On this episode of the Post Podcast Grow Hays executive director, Doug Williams talks about the impact of declining populations on the area economy.
Friday Aug 13, 2021
Grow Hays' housing rehab program seeking applicants
Friday Aug 13, 2021
Friday Aug 13, 2021
On this episode of the Post Podcast, Grow Hays executive director Doug Williams shares information about the Grow Hays Housing Rehab program.