Eco Devo Request sparks Heated Debate

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A routine budget review turned heated July 17, as Ulysses City Council met in special session.

In addition to reviewing each department’s budget, the council discussed appropriations from different entities, including: Grant County Economic Development, Grant County Chamber of Commerce, Western Kansas Child Advocacy Center, and Grant County Community Foundation.

While the council had no issue with the $20,000 request from the Chamber, $5,000 from Western Kansas Child Advocacy Center and $2,000 from Grant County Community Foundation, a $50,000 request from Economic Development struck a nerve with some council members.

The appropriations were not up for a vote of the council unless the council decided, otherwise they will be decided during public hearings in August.

The $50,000 request from Eco Devo was built into the budget and would come out of the city’s general fund. When City Administrator Luke Grimes asked the council if they were comfortable with that amount, councilman Mark Diaz said "no".

“I’m not comfortable with it at all,” Diaz said, to which councilman Caleb Woods asked his reasoning.

“My reasoning is – I wanted you guys to speak up first – but I’m just going to say no, because I don’t want you guys to put it in there because I’m not there.”

Diaz said Eco Devo re-wrote its bylaws two years ago and “Go out on their own,” Diaz said. He said they already had a coalition with the city and the county, and those entities were already giving money to Eco De-vo.

“So, them to rewrite the bylaws basically gives them the choice of who they wanted to put on that board,” Diaz said. “And it took us of making those decisions.

“So, according to my understanding of what was in the paper last week, they’ve actually joined as a cooperative with Grant County Bank and Pi-oneer Communications to have a cooperative there.”

At the July 1 Grant County Commission meeting where Eco Devo re-quested $100,000, Economic Development Director Bob Dale told the commission that Economic Development recently gained corporate part-nerships with Pioneer Communications and Grant County Bank, allowing them one board member.

“We’re looking to expand corporate,” Dale told the county commission July 1. “What we’re really trying to do there is grow the pool of people and resources and ideas on our board.”

Diaz said the city doesn’t donate to most 501(c)3’s

“They have chose to be on their own, and I understand that they give money to the separate businesses,” Diaz said. “What bothers me the most, which is actually a good bother, is that it’s taken us three years to finally get answers from economic development, and they stated it in the paper, now we’re going to give you answers to the public.

In the past, we’ve asked for this, so to me what they’ve gained as far as the $200,000 or whatever, I don’t see that we should – and you look at economic development’s paper here, it shows a 16% increase in wages for one person.”

Diaz said that the city has put people in place because Eco Devo does not want to answer to the city.

“So, if Economic Development wants their separate deal and their own separate cooperative and they want their own separate bylaws, then I think that they could do it,” Diaz said. “My understanding is you have businesses, you have 17 businesses that actually benefitted from it, that’s great, but when do you get those businesses to start involving themselves in the cooperative that Pioneer Communications and Grant County Bank has put into?

Do we just keep giving them money and say okay, yeah you want us to sign today and we’re going to give it to you? This is taxpayer money, $50,000, and to me, if you have a business, eventually you’ve got to step forward and help economic development or you’re not going to succeed as a business, and they work it as a cooperative.”

Diaz said he was not in favor of funding it for $50,000 because it’s tax-payer money.

“If Economic Development wants to work with us, that’s fine,” Diaz add-ed. “But the have chosen not to work with us, they always come in here for the money.”

He said the council is finally getting answers, which he said the public wants.

Councilman Caleb Woods said that the city has been having meetings with the county, school district, Chamber and Eco Devo and has decided as a group to support one another.

“Not once was that brought up or said at any of those meetings,” Woods said. “So, to me, it’s a little surprising because I felt like we, as a group, had decided to work together with all of the groups to move forward, and now you’re saying don’t fund economic development.”

Diaz said the group didn’t want negativity, they wanted to know what the group could talk about positively.

“We wanted honesty,” Woods countered.

“That’s right, and I can speak honesty,” Diaz said. “But my honesty is negativity to you, but it’s positive to the public.”

Woods said that doesn’t help the situation.

“Yes, it would have been negative to me but if it would have been brought up to the group, we could have worked on it and talked about it,” Woods said. “But nothing was brought up. To me, you just left it there and didn’t say anything.”

“Because I was asked not to bring that up,” Diaz said, asking councilman Ken Warner how much his business has his business received from Eco Devo. Warner said he doesn’t own the business.

“But you work there, that’s a biased opinion,” Diaz said.

“No, it’s not,” Warner countered.

“Yeah, it is, Diaz said. “You shouldn’t be voting for it.”

Mayor Tim McCauley then banged the gavel to prevent the meeting from turning into a shouting match.

“That’s enough,” McCauley said. “Enough’s enough.”

Warner said he understood Diaz’s argument.

“We sat there and we talked about working together, that’s what we got to do,” Warner said. “My issue is, they came to us and we cut them back to $25,000 two years ago because we were not happy with some issues and we addressed them over a year or so and they have made some progress.

“They have different board members, and they have a better board who’s making more choices, and you see that board taking a part. And we did agree in that meeting and all those discussions we were going to do that.”

Warner said the council needs to show that it is supportive.

“I think we’ve got work as a group,” Warner said. “Working not together, as we talked about in so many meetings over the last several months is, if we’re going to move forward as a city and a county and a community, we’ve got to work together. If we’re not willing to work together, we’re not gonna proceed.”

Warner said he supports $50,000 for Economic Development and the oth-er amounts for the Chamber and other entities because it’s worked into the budget and doesn’t change the mill levy.

The proposed millage rate is again 39.605 mills.

Diaz is opposed to any amount for Eco Devo, as are John Duran and Ter-ry Dimmitt. Woods, Warner and Maas are in favor of $50,000.

“I understand that maybe you’re not happy with Bob (Dale) and what he does,” Terry Maas said. “But that’s their board’s responsibility and their employee to manage. If they don’t feel that Bob’s doing a good job, then that’s on them, it shouldn’t be on us.”

Diaz said it was not personal against Bob Dale, saying he’s answering to the people and he’s not against the businesses and the community supports the businesses. But the community is tired of the money being given away.

Grimes said economic development is a complex organization and is not perfect, neither the city.

“It is a private entity, but it was started by the city and county,” Grimes said. “It’s like a child of ours, almost.”

Grimes asked for a consensus as to whether or not to fund Eco Devo, say-ing that if came to a tie, it would need to be voted on.

The consensus was 3 for and 3 against, and the vote was also 3-3 with Diaz, Duran and Dimmitt saying no and Maas, Warner and Woods yes. The tie-breaking vote went to Mayor McCauley, who voted yes, making it 4-3 in favor of funding economic development at the proposed $50,000.