Toward the end of Monday night’s Leitchfield City Council meeting, new council member Tim Bocock strongly encouraged the idea of the city becoming more aggressive and using different tactics regarding the attraction of new business to Leitchfield.
In his opening remarks, Bocock, who owns an insurance company, recommended reaching out to the public to create a committee and consider hiring someone with an entrepreneurial spirit to attract jobs. The city would pay the business recruiter a base salary plus commission on the jobs the person attracts.
“I don’t think we re-invent the wheel, but we look at what other communities are doing and doing well,” he said. “I think we need to evaluate our return on investment of what we’re getting from the Industrial Foundation (Leitchfield-Grayson Co. Industrial Development Foundation), because anecdotally, it seems like we’re not getting our money’s worth there, and maybe if we could look at investing that money elsewhere.
“Growth has come to other communities around us that are out-competing us and out attracting industry. It’s our time to move on that. (The Industrial Foundation’s Government Affairs and Economic Development specialist & lobbyist) Richie (Sanders) is a great person, he does great work, but I think we need somebody that’s very entrepreneurial minded that’s going to make cold calls to those people in California that are paying exorbitant tax rates.
“Someone that can sell the Twin Lakes area and how great our community is. Someone that’s going to call those people in New Jersey and talk about, ‘Hey, this is the place to do business … because of our tax rates and our lifestyle.’
“To call that logistics company down in Tennessee and Ohio whose truck drivers are sitting an hour in traffic. Where we have access to the 69 corridor, I-65, Western Kentucky Parkway, Natcher, Cumberland Parkway, all within a stone’s throw.
“We could recruit data centers and the type of jobs those would bring in — really high-paying, tech savvy. We’d have to partner with vocational education and ECTC to make sure we get those people trained. But think it would be a boon.
“And you don’t pay a guy an exorbitant salary. You pay a young man or young woman that comes in here with an entrepreneurial mindset, and if they achieve, they will do well. And if they don’t, we fail our failures fast and we move on from them.”
Bocock, at the end of his remarks, acknowledged Mayor Harold Miller spends a considerable amount of time working to attract new businesses to Leitchfield.
Miller told Bocock that he has had recent conversations with Judge-Executive Kevin Henderson, Sen. Steve Meredith and Rep. Samara Heavrin regarding strategies to attract businesses to Leitchfield, and that he thinks “we need to be bold at times.”
Miller and Bocock will soon meet, along with other key people, and discuss Bocock’s ideas.
By Ken Howlett, News Director
Contact Ken at ken@k105.com
