Developing the local economy, Outside-In

Saturday, January 12, 2008

An 11-member group formed in 2006 is continuing to move forward in providing ideas and concepts to increase economic development in Fort Scott.

The committee, called Outside-In Economic Development, was created as part of a 2005 community-wide revitalization effort spearheaded by Terry Woodbury, president of Kansas Communities, an organization aimed at reinvigorating smaller towns across the state. The Sunday Herald-Tribune asked the group's co-convener, Jamie Armstrong, several questions about how the group has progressed since Armstrong gave an update at the Community Conversation in September.

Give us an update on the committee's work in the last four months.

Since the community conversation in September, our group has been focused on realigning our goals for 2008 and beyond.

Our original recommendation to the City Commission contained four objectives.

First, to develop a new comprehensive plan for the city.

Each of the communities we shadowed shared the importance of having a "road map" for where your community is headed. And we were delighted with the decision made last July to move forward with a new comprehensive plan. I believe it will be wrapped up sometime this spring.

Our second recommendation was to staff a city planner. Each of the communities we talked with made it clear that while a comprehensive plan is important, unless a community is willing to staff the resources to implement that plan, it really didn't make sense. We were equally as optimistic when the City Commission approved a community development officer (which will be responsible for implementation of the plan in some capacity) was approved for budget. They also approved additional staff for codes enforcement, which was an issue uncovered through the survey for the comprehensive plan. This is a huge win for the community and for the future of Fort Scott. It shows that our leaders are committed to seeing Fort Scott grow and are listening to what the community is telling them.

Our third and fourth recommendations were to eliminate obstacles in revitalizing downtown and to develop funding strategies for both private/public investments for economic development. These efforts are now being addressed by the sub-committees of the Phoenix project, and therefore leave our opportunities wide open.

Will the group develop goals and initiatives for improvements for the town from the comprehensive plan or from ideas generated by the committee's group members?

Our initiatives for ecodevo (as we call it) will be generated from all different sources. We've received ideas from our community conversation in September from a member of the community that we are pursuing as a possibility. It's a pretty big concept, so we need to do a lot of research before we can proceed; but we like the idea and think it merits further investigation. We will also continue to pull from the comprehensive plan as a guide for economic development. It's always interesting to me to see how ecodevo is impacted by almost every aspect of the community. For example, parks and recreation impact our ability to attract and retain businesses because of the impact it has on families.

Our education system is very similar.

A sound education system is crucial in business recruitment as is our tax structure, our community amenities such as the pool, the golf course, etc. We are always open to ideas--regardless of where they come from.

Has the group sat down and listed goals it wants to accomplish?

We are currently developing our goals for 2008 and beyond, nothing has been put on paper yet, but at least we know that we want to address economic development from a comprehensive standpoint. Meaning, we don't want to piece-meal our attempts to improve ecodevo in Bourbon County. We need to have a holistic, systematic approach.

If the committee could narrow down and choose just one improvement for the downtown area, what would it be and why?

At this point our focus will really be in finding creative sources of funding for projects downtown, rather than the improvements themselves. I think the downtown and the streetscape committees are working on concepts for beautification. I think at some point creative ideas around attracting retail opportunities will be a must for downtown -- and there are some really "out of the box" ideas being generated in the community when we're ready for that step.

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