It’s challenging to recruit businesses to rural America. As much as we enjoy the open spaces, short commutes and friendly people, a declining population and a lack of infrastructure, among other things, make regions like southeast Kansas a tough sell.
Thus the golden rule of rural economic development: protect what you have. It’s easier to maintain the businesses in your community, and perhaps help them expand, than it is to bring in new ones. Every town wants a Panasonic factory. Those that bet their future on it often end up sorely disappointed.
Which is why we are so encouraged by the Iola City Council’s decision to split the bill with PrairieLand Partners for a sewer line expansion to where they plan to build a new facility. Here’s a business that, in the words of Dale Lalman, Iola store manager, wants “to be a good community member and bring more business and vitality to this community.” They plan to spend an estimated $14 million on a new store.
Supporting PrairieLand was the right thing to do. It helps a business that wants to be here, stay and grow here. And it sends a message that the City of Iola is willing to invest in its businesses.
MONDAY’S conversation wasn’t without friction. Council member Carl Slaugh, with an eye on the checkbook, knows cities like Iola don’t have unlimited funds. The money has to come from somewhere. And Slaugh is right; at the root, it all comes from taxpayers. So we are glad elected officials want to spend public funds carefully.
But as Mayor Steve French said, “If we’re not going to offer anything to anyone, we’re going to continue to fall further and further behind.” He continued, “We’re seeing too many other companies getting drawn to other cities by what they do and can offer, whether it’s in-kind or monetary, tax breaks. This is a new day of doing business. Cities are going to have to give something.”
Often, we tend to take for granted the businesses already here. One imagines the excitement if news broke that a brand-new implement dealer was interested in building a multi-million dollar facility in town. What city wouldn’t want to lure them in?
And when cities use public funds to secure economic development activity, we understand the funds are an investment in the city’s future. As council member Joel Wicoff said, even if he faced the hypothetical of a rate increase to pay for the sewer project, “I’d pay more personally for wastewater as an investment in my community.”
AS Kansas becomes more urbanized, small towns like Iola will continue to swim upstream. But the tools, and the solutions, are in our own hands. No one else is coming to save Iola.
That means we need to invest more, not less, in our communities. And it will require tough, calculated decisions about what we can live without, and what we value. Based on Monday’s vote, at the top of the council’s list is a vibrant business community. That’s a great lodestar.
— Tim Stauffer
