The 100 or so people who attended a town hall meeting Monday at the Greene County Community Center were recruited as ambassadors to help fill needs created by anticipated job growth in the county. The 75-minute meeting was organized by Ken Paxton, executive director of Greene County Development Corp (GCDC) to share information and to let residents know what their roles can be as the county looks for an estimated 800 new jobs in the next one or two years.
Paxton opened the meeting. “In the next two years, this is going to be a dramatically different place than it is right now,” he said in his introduction. “The key purpose of this meeting tonight is to provide you information on a lot of different issues. I want you to be informed. I want you to think if there’s anything you can be a part of some of the things we need to get done during this period of time, and I want you to disseminate. I want you to be an information source for us, to go back and talk to your neighbors, talk to your friends, talk to your families so that the group that’s here can multiply the information that’s going out…. We’ve got a chance to grow this county fairly significantly…. You’ll never have a chance like this, at least not in the foreseeable future. These next two years are a critical time in the development of the county. We need to be prepared.”
Lisa Jaskey is on the Jefferson city council and serves on the council’s housing committee and as chair of GCDC housing committee. She was the first speaker, and explained there are four things a person or family looks at in considering relocating: available housing, schools, healthcare and childcare.
Jaskey said that in looking at the anticipated wages associated with the job growth, $120,000 is the top end of the price range for housing, with the majority of the new residents being able to afford less than that. Area bankers have cautioned that many of those new residents will have too much debt (student loans, credit card debt and vehicle loans) to qualify for a mortgage in that price range. They suggested the GCDC committee focus on the availability of rental housing, whether that be single family homes, duplexes or apartments.
The housing committee has undertaken an update of a 1999 housing study, updating information about jobs and wages, available housing and demographic trends. It will include an information sheet for developers of current tax incentives offered by the federal and state government, as well as local incentives. It will also catalog possible sites for housing development.
The housing committee asks for the help of county residents in recruiting developers. “If you have a relative, if you have a friend, if you know somebody who does that sort of thing, let us know,” Jaskey said. “If you’ve been thinking about buying some rental property or rehabbing a house to rent, now is the time to do that,” she added.
There is up to $25 million available in Iowa towns the size of Jefferson for multi-family housing projects for low- to moderate-income families. A maximum $1 million is available for any one project, Jaskey said. She also noted that there are opportunities not only in Jefferson, but in all towns in the county.
“Please, consider being a voice for your community and taking advantage of the opportunities in housing. All of us, in one way or another, are involved in housing….In the end, it’s all about building homes for people,” she said.
Cherie Cerveny, executive director of the Greene County Early Learning Center, talked about childcare needs and gave a brief history of the center. The center is currently licensed for 116 children. She said the ELC has a waiting list, half of whom are babies who haven’t been born yet. The ELC is investigating building a new center, partly because regulations make it very expensive to renovate an existing building. “As we’re looking to build with this big growth of jobs in the county, we know that we cannot meet all that demand on a moment’s notice,” she said.
The ELC will support in-home providers, she said, inviting them to participate in classes and trainings held for ELC employees.
Jim Andrew spoke of the Home Base Iowa initiative and the effort to recruit military veterans to the county.
As part of the Home Base Iowa initiative, a generic job application has been developed and posted on the GCDC website. The applications are matched to available jobs, and to date, three veterans have already been hired. Andrew told of a voucher program using Chamber Checks to pay for a hotel stay and meals during veterans’ exploratory visits to the community, of financial incentives in housing, and other services available to veterans.
Andrew also asked residents to help in the process. “All of us need to welcome visitors and new citizens to our communities with open arms and genuine caring,” he said. “We can go a long way to making their transition as an individual or family easier by being friendly, helpful, and interested in helping in any way possible. This loving attitude just builds on itself as word spreads and we witness the revitalization of our towns and county.”
He also reminded those present to invite veterans they know, or their children who may have left the community, to move to Greene County. “Talk it up, folks, for this is the greatest opportunity we have ever contemplated in offering superb work opportunities in a secure, healthy hometown environment. We need the energy and new blood of these new citizens to bring us fresh ideas, challenges, and stimulus to keep our community and county growing and viable,” Andrew said.
Alan Robinson, director of Jefferson Matters: Main Street, told of that group’s efforts. He highlighted Sally’s Alley, the historic plaques around the courthouse square, and the coming rooftop art. He said there are vacant buildings in the downtown area that he thinks of as “business opportunities.” He said the new Hy-Vee grocery store presents a huge opportunity for the downtown. “It’s very rare for a large grocery story to be built that close to a downtown. We’re very fortunate Hy-Vee is coming in to do that,” Robinson said.
Chris Henning, Greene County Chamber executive director, updated the group on Chamber activities, talking about recent and upcoming events. “The fun part of this business is that it’s not just the Chamber. It’s all of you, with all of your creative ideas, all of you joining in, getting to know each other, helping entertain, helping welcome people to Greene County, to show it’s not all work, that we can play,” she said.
She talked about the welcome center at the Thomas Jefferson Gardens, the recently published Greene County tourism guide, and an updated Chamber website (www.GreeneCountyIowa.org) that will go live soon.
Greene County Medical Center executive director Carl Behne spoke about the construction/renovation project underway at the medical center. He noted that just that day, the first vertical steel beams were placed, making more for people to see as they drive by. (See photo at end of story.) He explained that because the site has to be raised so much, what’s been visible since the groundbreaking in March has mostly been dirt piles. “The project is all about privacy, access, and efficiency,” he said, and added that the goal is updating the aging infrastructure to set up the medical center building for another 50 or 75 years of use.
Behne also talked about the new partnership with UnityPoint Clinic to provide primary care physicians. He said it will allow the medical center to grow its strategic vision that is centered around care coordination and patient experience locally.
Manager of the new Jefferson Hy-Vee store Lori Subbert spoke briefly about that project. Construction will begin soon and will go quickly. The store will open in the spring. The floor plan has not been finalized. “I can tell you it’s going to be a phenomenal store,” she said, with a sit-down café and a kitchen preparing carry-out hot food, a bakery, a meat department, a health market, and a pharmacy with a drive-up window. She did not give a timeline for hiring.
Amy Rubel, a vice president for Wild Rose Entertainment, also gave a brief update on the construction of Wild Rose at the intersection of Highways 4 and 30. She said the project will be completed next summer, but without knowing what the Iowa weather will bring, a more exact date can’t be given. Wild Rose is currently taking applications on the company website, but there will be a job fair in the spring that will include same-day interviews. Upper management positions are being filled now, with the local manager position to be filled in the next couple of months.
At the close of the meeting, Paxton said, “Hopefully you learned something, some things you can take back. You have one responsibility when you leave here. That’s to tell as many people as you can what you heard here. Spread the word, especially about the key topics –housing, schools, hospital and daycare.”
Paxton said there may be a similar town hall meeting again in the spring.
