A revival of rural Kansas can come from drawing businesses and housing to the centers of small cities and by building better highways, gubernatorial candidate Laura Kelly said Monday.
In a plan she says could invigorate rural areas, the Democrat also calls for propping up small grocery stores, expanding Medicaid coverage, reopening state offices closed in recent years and fixing deteriorating housing in those areas.
The state senator from Topeka didnt put a price tag on her rural rejuvenation plan. But she said some of it would be paid for by shifting money from underperforming economic development efforts. She promised a review of existing programs to sort out which ones have failed to deliver jobs and rural development.
The peanut in this entire plan is the establishment of the Office of Rural Prosperity, Kelly told the Kansas News Service. That shows how serious we are about this issue that this is not going to be some sort of plan that gets put on the shelf.
Josh Svaty, another Democrat running for governor, read Kellys plan and found much to agree with. It echoed, he said, the same proposals that Paul Davis championed in his failed run for governor four years ago. And, he said, it reads like plans Democrats across the country have endorsed for years.
Its not the plan, its the messenger, said Svaty, a former member of the Kansas House and one-time state agriculture secretary. Coming from Kelly, he said, it sounds like just another Topekan whos rolling out the same talking points.
As someone from rural Ellsworth County, Svaty said he can better win over rural voters in the general election.
They just trust me because they know this is where Im from, he said in a phone interview.
Still, Svaty agreed with Kelly when she placed part of the blame for closing hospitals, cash-strapped schools, disappearing industries and other troubling trends in rural Kansas on the policies of former Gov. Sam Brownback and his Republican successor, Gov. Jeff Colyer.
Yet the emptying out of rural communities, particularly across the Great Plains, has happened steadily for generations.
Kelly said that as governor she would start with a thorough review of the outcomes of all current economic development incentives and tax credits.
She also said federal money that would pay for much of Medicaid expansion help from Washington thats set to decline in coming years would boost rural health care and the part it plays in local economies.
Among the initiatives in Kellys proposal:
On housing, shed give tax credits to spur the development of the upper floors of downtown buildings into apartments and press colleges to put housing in downtown areas.
On infrastructure, her plan calls for completing road projects including many that have gone dormant in recent years of state budget cuts to highway improvements and putting more money into developing rural Internet access.
