County to seek economic development director on contract basis

By Charlene Sims, Journal staff

LCJeditor@icloud.com

MOUND CITY – On a split vote, the Linn County Commission made the decision to put out an advertisement for a person to handle the annual grants that the county gives out to organizations and businesses in the county.

After hearing from the Linn County Counselor Jacklyn Paletta and County Clerk Chasity Ware, – who is the county’s former economic development director – Commissioner Jason Hightower made the motion, “I’ll make a motion that we post an economic development contract position to handle the grants awarded by the county for summer youth employment, community and childcare with a $2,000 amount.”

The motion passed on a 2-to-1 vote with Commission Chair Alison Hamilton voting against the measure. Earlier in the meeting Hamilton had expressed concern about who was going to train the person and oversee what they were doing.

Early in the discussion, Paletta had informed the commissioners that she had contacted NetWork Kansas.

“I had a conversation with Janet (Miller from Network Kansas) about the loans that were already distributed to recipients in Linn County,” Paletta said. “Those loans will continue to be available to those folks as long as they continue to stay true to the terms of their contracts.

“Even though the agreement between eCommunity and Linn County sort of seems to indicate that in the absence of an economic development board (the Linn County Economic Development Committee) that those monies would not be available. The monies that have already been awarded are not affected by that according to actual practice.

“I guess it is any new grants, new loans, that type of thing that would not be available without a business partnership. It doesn’t have to be an economic development committee. In some places they have suggested the chamber of commerce or that type of thing for the community.”

Then Paletta talked about the local grants provided by Linn County to organizations and businesses.

“The grants that we are calling grants but were funded by the budget process through Linn County, that was directly Linn County money through the budgeting process. In years past you all have prevailed upon an economic development director and committee to sort of vett the applications for those grants and, through the process of determining whose was qualified, to receive those monies.

“You did already fund that or allocate money, I guess, for lack of a better word. And so now you just don’t have somebody to review any of those applications and or field any of the phone calls and inquiries that  are coming in which you do have. So when Jennifer Leach Harlow was in here before, she asked you all about the possibility of them selecting and an economic development director like on a stipend basis to get you through the end of the year for some of those grants and things like that that had already, you know, been allocated.

“I didn’t know if you all were interested in that or getting some type of a contract position to be able to go through all of the applications since you had already set the money aside so there can be a point of contact for these inquiries that are coming in. They’re coming into the clerk’s office. And obviously the clerk is not over economic development but people are asking about those grants that you know were discussed during the budgeting process.”

Ware added, “I do want to just add that this is not going to be a decision that can be made overnight, but we do need to be thinking about long term with this. If you’re going to because budgeting season is just around the corner. So, what you’re going to do moving forward about grants in the future or awards, you know whatever.

“I just want you guys to be thinking about that that we can’t wait until like October or November to be making these decisions. So you need to put this on the back burner of your brain that what you’re going to do moving forward with that.”

Hamilton said, “Well we budgeted for it already.”

Hightower answered, “For this year, she’s saying that next year is going to be coming around before we know it.”

Paletta told the commissioners, “I think you all have to decide whether you’re going to go out, you know, posting a job. I think the last time the economic development committee was in here, they were trying to explain that they’re kind of done because they don’t have any type of guidance or whatever. So, I don’t know that its reasonable to expect that they can again bring you, you know, some type of option for that.

“I am concerned that we are running out of time. It’s already March, and so my understanding is that in years past they had already started receiving some of the applications for some of those grants that you all had allocated. And like I indicated, many of the people are already inquiring about how to apply for those grants and the clerk’s office doesn’t have the information to give them.

Ware explained the work involved with the summer youth grant, community organization and childcare grant. She said it would take a person around 40 hours to collect, award and administer those grants. The process though would be over at least a six-month time period.

Johnson and Hightower discussed what the position would look like and how the person would       be paid. It was decided to pay them a flat fee for the work.

Hamilton noted her disagreement with the process by saying, “You guys can decide about that. I think that you get back into a situation where you’re trying to, like Chasity knows, but we’re supposed to be the one telling them what to do. We don’t even know anything about it.”

Ware had replied, “I will assist anybody. That’s where I’m at. Anybody that does anything, I will assist them.”

“But do you want to do that? Do you have the time?” asked Hamilton.

Ware answered, “It will have to be after hours of my time.”

“Exactly. So I don’t want to get in that situation again. Honestly, I just don’t,” said Hamilton.