"Update" Program with Economic Development Director Tina Joy Cochran

0:00Good afternoon and welcome to today's update program on 97.5 FM double K country. I'm Thomas Singer. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. Today we're going to talk about another opportunity for residents to give some feedback for the economic development of Vernon County. Bill Vernon County is hosting a countywide economic development town hall meeting on March 5th from 6 to 7 30 pm. That'll be at the Centennial Hall at the Vernon County Fairgrounds and talk about that town hall meeting today. We have none of an economic development director Tina Joy Cochran. Ms. Cochran, thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having me, Thomas. Well let's talk a little bit about what build Vernon County is and what build Vernon County does for some of the residents who may not know. So the last time I was here on the update we were talking about economic development in general and what we're looking at. We talked a lot about build Vernon County and what we hoped to get started. Well great great great news big updates. Build Vernon County has received their 501c3 so build Vernon County is a fully certified nonprofit organization that is privately and publicly funded so

1:04think of it as the city kicks in some to pay for the budget the county kicks in some to pay for the budget we're able to get grants. So it's a standalone entity that focuses on economic development for an entire county. The bylaws in that organization require us once a year to have a town hall. This is something that the board and myself and the people as we researched what's best practice. Our economic development will be focused not on having someone from the outside come and rescue us but from for us building from the inside out to create an environment where everyone can thrive. So we need input from the entire county the entire community on what people are thinking about with economic development what would help them thrive what success would look like so that our initiatives are in line with what the county is already doing and this is the community's economic development not an outside agency coming in to fix us.

2:10Well let's talk a little bit about the previous comprehensive plan town hall meetings. This is very different because it's not the same goals and topics that are going to be discussed. We want to make sure to differentiate that with this program because the timing of it may think that residents are going to think they're repeating themselves but this is not this is a separate entity. Exactly it's really exciting and confusing sometimes we are as a community and the city of Nevada and the community at large. We're in a time of really enthusiasm and motivation for change for making making things different here which involves lots of organizations and unfortunately that's great but unfortunately the process for change in this type of culture and type of environment and economic change requires collecting data from the community so

3:10last year I was involved in initiative with Main Street where it was all about get the survey done and I think we've all failed maybe feel like we've been surveyed to death. That's good and bad but hang in there because it's the first step to make sure that our needs as a community are represented. So let's talk about the town halls that were recently hosted by the city of Nevada. So the city of Nevada is working on something that is a huge important piece of economic development. It's working on a brand new comprehensive plan. A comprehensive plan is this is where the city wants to go and the people in the residents of the city of Nevada want to go with the use of land branding for the city. This is specifically focused at the city and their first step is because they started at the same time we're starting and the first step is to gather data from the community as to what community wants. Again it's it just shows

4:11it might feel like we're being meeting to death and survey to death but it just shows how much we're wanting to have this come from the inside out. So what we did in the town halls, what the consultants did in the town hall for the comprehensive plan, we're actually going to take a page out of their playbook for the format. So our format will be that we will have five questions that we're asking the community to sit together discuss and answer and report out on these are what input is important to us. That's a data collecting thing. The difference is that we're going to be focusing where in the town hall for the comprehensive plan they were focused on things like well how is the city doing a good job, how are the city better communicate, what do we want specifically for the city. Our questions are more along the lines of the bigger picture for the county as a whole. So we're looking at questions like what's working well in Vernon County right now, what

5:13should we protect and build on? What are the good things? We're looking at questions like if we were sitting here five years from now what would what would make you say this is working. And at these town halls what kind of voices are you hoping to hear from what kind of people do you expect to attend this event. What I'm hoping I've been telling people I'm hoping to get 50 people so if if you're listening to this grab two friends and come please please please what we're looking for is county wide. This is not focused on just what's happening in downtown Nevada. This is focused on what's what we want across the whole county. So we're looking for voices from Walker. We're looking for voices from Bernal. We're looking for voices from Metz and Harwood and and Sheldon and if I forget the towns we're looking for all of you who maybe have never felt like you had a voice of what's happening in our community and that we want Nevada people. We want everyone to that wants things to be different. The thing I want to make sure we

6:15understand is economic development is focused on four different things. It's focused on workforce and education. So if you're in a place that how people grow in their careers that it's not just we want a new job we want a better job or we want our job to pay more that if that's your passion we want you there. We focus on small business and entrepreneurship if you've ever thought somebody should start a business that or better yet I'd like to start a business that if you want if you want that this is your thing I want you to want you to come and tell us what is the business you want to start. Vibrant community is something else that we focus on so if you're interested in housing if you're if you're interested in how can we make our our community prettier a better place that's something that we're looking at as well and I want your input on and the last thing is business retention and attraction. If you already own run a business this is your place to come and be heard with I need this support for my business to stay here

7:19and to grow. As you look at the economic economic development currently in Vernon County for those who may not know what are some of the bigger challenges that the county is facing right now. Since I started this in May I've done been doing a lot of listening and a lot of meetings and a lot of hearing from people what are the challenges what are and there's a couple of themes that I'm hearing that I would love honestly I would love some input on how do we address this and how do we fix this. What I'm hearing is there's not anything for people to do. We want things like arcades and restaurants and those types of things and then I'm hearing we need better jobs. We need good jobs. Unfortunately the challenge we have in that is the things to do businesses have low paying jobs attached right so it's how do we make that happen. What I'm not hearing is we want to double and triple our population we want our lifestyle to change. We move here because we

8:22want to live rural so we want to protect that too so it's kind of a catch 22 how do we have things to do but protect our privacy. A statistic that I heard recently that makes me think that this is really a great opportunity and really important for us is that 30% of people who are moving want to move to a rural community so we tend to sometimes get in this nobody wants to live here yeah they do right so how do we build this that makes it welcoming without losing that rural component. And using those challenges where do you personally see the most untapped potential in the community. I think the most untapped potential is in our workforce and honestly I'm working daily with our training providers with different programs to try to find out how do we help support that so that I can't imagine there's anybody in our community that's like I don't want to work. That's not how

9:23life rural people are right we're pull it up by both strips make it happen so trying to find a way to skill those people with entrepreneurship I mean that's one of our biggest opportunities is another statistic I heard is about 60 or 70 percent of people who live rural with love to have their own business right if you think about it which would you rather have in our community the small mom and pop market where you walk in they know your name they know what you want and then they hand that down to the next generation and the next generation or would you want a dollar general on the square. I love dollar general don't get me wrong but where the money goes out to corporate and you pay minimum wage to work there. So once the town hall ideas are gathered where do you go from there what will you do with those ideas in the future? So what we're gonna what we're gonna do the structure of build Vernon County as we have an 11 person board that's a board that is our governance board and our

10:27decision-making board but the board has actually tasked me with building an advisory council so the idea is year one again this is an annual event our bylaws require us to do so this is something we'll be doing again next year year one is gathered the information and then a couple of times of year I'll be working with our with anyone who wants to continue being involved in an advisory council setting where it's okay let's dig deeper into these things that map and that way we can start to bring initiatives we can start to bring activities associated with that to the board for decisions to find new fundings and those things that we're working on the idea behind that town hall is to have the big picture this year it will be about gathering data next year it will be about delivering results like one of the questions is if you were sitting here five years from now what what what would make you say this is working that's a question I really want to know because for me that's like

11:27asking my boss how do I be successful in what I'm doing right so next year it'll be about this is where how far we've come do we need to tweak so here in year one with the town hall meetings what would a successful one look like for you what a successful one that would look like for me would be 50 people honestly I mean I've got I'm trying to do data to have at least 50 people show up and be able to answer those questions from us and I believe the format that we have where it's not Jeremy fast who is the president of our board he will be delivering a couple of minutes of this is what Bill Vernon County is I will be talking for a couple minutes I promise it will only be a couple minutes about what economic development is and just kind of reviewing some of the things we've talked about today and then it'll be breaking into groups answering those questions having all of that from 50 people will be amazing to have and if somebody has questions after this town hall meeting or just questions for you in general what's the

12:29best way to reach the best way to reach me is emails the best way to reach me director at build vcmo.com we do have a website buildvcmo.com and you can check out the website it is in development all right well thank you for joining us today thanks for having me that is Tina Joy Cochran the economic development director for build Vernon County again that town hall meeting will be taking place on March 5th from six to seven thirty pm at Centennial Hall at the Vernon County Fairgrounds that is located at 1617 East Ashland Street in Nevada open to the public no registration required make sure to come out make sure to give your feedback because it is crucial to moving the economic development forward that will do it for today's update program again that is Tina Joy Cochran economic development director I'm Thomas English and this has been today's update