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Ulysses City Council, Grant County Commission, USD 214 Board of Trustees, Grant County Economic Development, and Grant County Chamber of Commerce gathered together June 3 at Bear Creek Coffee with one goal in mind: How can they work together to make Ulysses and Grant County a better place to live.
Representatives from each have met before – three times prior - but this meeting included everyone. The USD 214 Board of Trustees considered it a special meeting, School Board President Diana Nuñez called the meeting to order, and the trustees adopted the agenda.
Grant County Commission Chairman John Martin welcomed everyone to the meeting and explained the purpose for the meeting - to iron out the direction everyone wants to move.
“The purpose of the coalition is to unite the governing bodies to promote growth and collaboration in Grant County,” Martin said.
Ulysses City Councilman Caleb Woods called it the Grant County Leadership Coalition and Martin the Grant County Community Growth Coalition.
“I just figured it was a good way to describe what we all hope to do as a group, and continue to do,” Woods said.
Woods wanted to start with some positives, saying he had spoken with people from each entity in attendance and he thought everyone believed the previous meeting was productive and took steps forward in adding all the groups to help the community.
“The positive we took from last meeting for all of us for this meeting is what we accomplished to get here (the large group),” Woods said. “I’ve been here nine years, and I don’t think there’s ever been this type of meeting, especially two months in a row.”
School Trustee Stacey Gee said she was excited about the entities coming together to try to better the community.
“I don’t know that this has ever happened, so definitely steps in the right direction,” Gee said. “I think it’s appropriate at this point in time to commend Luke (Grimes) and the city council on the job they have done recently.”
Economic Development director Bob Dale said the term “Economic Development” is a broad term used around the country to describe creating growth and opportunities in the community.
“I think for a long time, the term Economic Development has meant my office,” Dale said. “In all honesty, the way it’s supposed to work is – especially as a standalone – meaning the community and these organizations to come together and say, ‘This is what we want.’
“And then it’s our job to try and make those things happen.”
He said if everyone is in agreement on something, then go after it. Some things they can get, some things they can’t, some things are going to be expensive.
“But just getting that central idea of this is how we want to move forward as a community gives us our direction of where we need to go and what we need to be working on,” Dale added.
Woods established guidelines for future meetings. Martin has taken on the role of chairman, Woods doesn’t think there needs to be a secretary, but Martin wanted a vice-chair. Dale suggested rotating between Martin, Ulysses Mayor Tim McCauley and School Board President Diana Nuñez.
The group also established meeting the first Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. and set the next meeting for July 1 at Bear Creek Coffee again.
Martin asked if everyone passed a resolution supporting the group, and Grimes said the city drafted a resolution establishing its commitment to establishing the principles of economic development.
“If it’s something they agree to then it’s a formal statement, the council says, ‘We want the community to grow and these are the tenants by which we expect to make that happen,’” Grimes said. “I do think there’s a lot of value in a formal statement to the public that the council - we are going to push for growth and we’re not going to accept failure in that area.”
Woods said he thinks all the entities want something like that and it holds them all accountable to the community.
“I think there’s value in all taking some kind of official action that says we have this official document we’ve created that a majority of us agree to,” Grimes said.
Each entity established members to do the “legwork” - once the larger group decides on something - to figure out how to get it done then bring it back to the larger group.
“I feel like the main purpose of a group this size is no one gets to say, ‘I didn’t know anything about that, I didn’t vote for that,’” Dale said. “We’re all here, we all gave thumbs up, now we’re going to move forward.”
School trustee Chad McCormick said once the larger group decides what they want, and then sets a smaller group on it, everyone needs to let the community know it’s supported. He said the school district’s resolution supporting the group should say how the district would benefit.
“What is our purpose?” McCormick said. “Our purpose is to do that so that our school is more successful. We have to put something in there about why we would support community growth, so it can help the schools.”
Finally, Woods said each entity would bring topics of discussion to the larger group to decide which one it wants to move forward on.
Dale said Economic Development was approached about bringing a brewery to Ulysses about the time a Liberal-based brewery – Tortuga Brewery - had approached the city about setting up at the weekly Farmer’s Market. They want to expand to Ulysses.
“The discussion was what it would take to get him here or get someone here to open a brewery,” Dale said. “It came down to providing a facility.”
Economic Development purchased a building on Main Street that could potentially be used for a brewery. Tortuga Brewery would need about $70,000 in order to expand to Ulysses.
“The question would be is there any appetite for $70,000 incentive from any of the other organizations to get that started sooner rather than later?” Dale said.
Grimes has had discussions with the Brewery’s owner and said a downtown location would be in line with the city’s goal of revitalizing downtown. Brewery’s are tourist attractions.
“I bring this up to this group, because it is up to the action group to figure out how to do this if everyone here agrees this is something worth investing in for this community,” Dale said. “That’s what we’re discussing, not how we’re going to do it.”
Is it worth the investment?
The group decided to task the action group with exploring the issue and present their findings at the July 1 meeting.
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