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'Let's keep in touch' — Pool of graduates seen as valuable recruiting resource
McCOOK, Neb. — Tom Buresh, MHS Class of 1962, believes that all 7,200 of his fellow McCook Senior High graduates "know someone who knows someone" who can help address business and workforce recruitment challenges in their hometown.
Buresh told Andy Long, executive director of the McCook Economic Development Corp., that each class of MHS graduates has a couple class representatives they can contact through the Bison Alumni Newsletter to share tips about businesses that might be interested in locating in McCook or graduates who could be encouraged to consider moving back to McCook.
Long was the guest speaker Tuesday morning at the Gazette's and Sehnert's Bakery's first monthly "Coffee with a Cop" community gab session of 2019. Buresh told Long, "Every class rep needs to be in touch with the MEDC." There's "real value" in "someone knowing someone," Buresh said.
Long said he'll check into the possibility of asking graduates to share information — Long's wife is the administrator of the alumni newsletter. Long said he can ask graduates and class representatives, "Do you want to move back? Do you want to invest? Do you want to start a business?," and encourage them to "Keep in touch."
Long said the most successful workforce recruitment is with 30-some-year-olds with children who want to move back because they have family in their hometown.
These young families and young entrepreneurs want high-speed internet, which Long said is also huge for businesses. "Fiber extended to the home is not just a nice extra," Long said, "but a 'must have' on many people's list."
Police Chief Ike Brown said that internet providers in the McCook area are private enterprise driven by, as business is, their bottom line and profit margin. "The MEDC and bigger users of internet can encourage, but we can't make them do it," Brown said. "We just have to encourage development at every opportunity."
Long told about a dozen people gathered at Sehnert's that the MEDC's priorities are business recruitment, workforce recruitment and development, and an adequate housing stock. He said, too, that an additional challenge that comes along with the first two challenges is qualified infant care for working parents.
With purchase-rehab, downpayment assistance and owner-occupied rehab to help address housing stock deficiencies, Long said, "There has been some progress in these area, but I have more questions now than I had six months ago," when he became MEDC director.
Long said he will list McCook's Pepsi warehouse on online sites listing commercial properties for sale, and, at Terry McCune's suggestion, investigate how to promote McCook if the Cornhuskers volleyball team plays its April 20 spring game in McCook. Nebraska's 2019 Cattlemen's Ball, scheduled June 7 and 8 and hosted by Wayne and Chris Krausnick of Imperial and Allison and Derek Sandman of Wauneta, is also a great opportunity to promote McCook and the whole of Southwest Nebraska, he said.
Retail recruitment continues as a mission of MEDC, and Long encourages national retailers to look at the population of McCook's trade area, not only the community's population. "They look at average household income, and traffic counts," he said. "We'll roll out the Pepsi building … reopen conversations with national retailers."
Downtown business owner Barb Wiemers bemoans what looks like the loss of local loyalty, as more and more shoppers turn to the internet to do their shopping. "Hometown loyalty isn't there for a younger generation of buyers," she said.
Chief Brown asked about the potential benefit to local retailers as internet retailers now add sales tax to shoppers' purchases. Long said it seems that internet shoppers look at a lower online price, and hit purchase … "They're 95 percent of the way there … , " he said, before they realize there's also shipping costs and now sales tax ... oh well, might as well go ahead …
Wiemers also encourages online shoppers to realize the hassles associated with an online company's return policy.
Long said that for every $100 spent at a local independent business, 65 percent is retained and recirculated in the local economy. When the same $100 is spent at a franchise retailer, 22 percent is regenerated locally. One hundred dollars spent online returns only 1 percent locally.
Bob Harrison questioned Long about developing properties and marketing business opportunities along East B, particularly east of the junction at East Sixth Street and South Highway 83. "There are lots of tremendous opportunities for properties on East B Street," Harrison said.
Long explained that the traffic counts that impress national retailers are from about Norris Avenue west to the highway junction and north on North Highway 83.
McCook business owner Jacque Riener said the East B area may benefit from a federal investment incentive program called "Opportunity Zones" within Pres. Donald Trump's $1.5 trillion tax overhaul plan called the "Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017." Red Willow County has two of these "Opportunity Zones," and McCook is included. The program will save private investors capital gains taxes while they invest in low-income communities and counties like McCook and Red Willow.
Long said while the U.S. Department of the Treasury is still writing the guidelines for this program, investors and entrepreneurs can take advantage of TIF (tax increment financing). The TIF program allows local governments to invest in infrastructure and other improvements and pay for them by capturing the increase in property valuation and thus property taxes paid by and generated by a developer or builder.
Gene Weedin said that when North Highway 83 goes to a "Super 2" with improved passing opportunities, he foresees an increase in truck traffic, which might bring in a truck stop. Long said that truck stops look for most generally 8-10 acres of land and infrastructure.
Brown said McCook needs to take advantage of its "wonderful position" at the hub of a large trade area. And Wiemers said that amenities such as Community Hospital, with its doctors and specialists, need to be "marketed" to retailers and families looking to move to McCook. "We're blessed here," she said.
Long agreed, adding that "local institutions" like the hospital and McCook Community College "are huge assets to the community."
Anyone "who knows someone who knows someone" and can help the MEDC with its mission to promote McCook is encouraged to contact Long at (308) 345-1200.