community assessment

Transcription

1 community assessment Community Assessment With any strategic planning effort, gathering the feedback of local business leaders, civic leaders and the public at-large is an integral way to understand core community issues and discover new opportunities for growth. Involving participants from across the community also enables planners to gauge the likelihood that recommended strategies will be accepted and adopted. Public engagement for Licking County was accomplished in two stages: Targeted listening sessions with local business and community leaders; and Public meetings Listening Sessions Report Starting in July of 2017 Montrose and the GROW Licking County economic development team conducted 16 listening sessions and meetings with elected officials and business and community leaders from across the County. The listening sessions had anywhere from 2 to 10 participants and GROW Licking County Listening included individuals from various sectors Sessions Top Identified Challenges including from business, utilities, development, education, real estate, government, elected Available workforce office, civic organizations, and not-for-profit Lack of skilled trades Transportation organizations. In all, more than 50 individuals North/south routes needed to connect I-70 participated in the listening sessions and and SR-161 meetings. Each participant was given the Public transportation, not serving the needs questionnaire ahead of time included as of employers and low skilled workers Appendix A and asked to think through and Too many organizations doing economic development in Licking County answer the questions. The listening sessions Housing availability were instructive and provided the GROW Less poverty and more diversity moving forward Licking County team and Montrose team the Product development is critical; need opportunity to understand what the community developable, job ready sites wants to be. The challenges identified in the Investment in broadband and sewer and water infrastructure in growing areas listening sessions fit into several different categories outlined in the chart below. Grow Licking County Economic Development Action Plan, February

2 Each listening session provided its own flavor on the current state of economic development in the County and the future state of economic development in the County. Largely based on the participants, the tone and tenor was different for each session. Common elements came through in each session, however that can help guide the County in its decision-making process about economic development issues and investments. Taking the responses to the questionnaire and categorizing and summarizing the input from the listening sessions includes: What is your understanding/impression of economic development efforts of Licking County? Overall gets a 4 out of 5 rating. Effectiveness going forward is GROW s ability to make property developable. Entities and organizations are taking more risk and chances than in the past. More collaboration today across all sectors than in the past. Plenty of activity and movement to try to attract new business. Licking County is best from an economic development perspective in the region. Perception has changed that if you live here you need to go work in Columbus. GROW is a good liaison to community providing communication of development efforts. Getting big wins through the county. Other counties would be envious. Overall the strategy is strong. GROW is an asset and working well. GROW has infrastructure in place with staff and dedicated funding source. Prior to GROW development efforts were fragmented. Number one job of GROW is attraction efforts; organically developing leads. Generating leads through ROI and other sources is the way to go. Need to focus on BR&E efforts. Number one challenge is that company s HQ are someplace other than Licking Co. GROW needs to facilitate but not be the leader of all efforts. What occupations and industries does Licking County need to focus its workforce developments efforts on to capitalize on the jobs of the future? Technology, customer service jobs/call center jobs. Entry level jobs today are in manufacturing; we need more variety and diversity. Ensure high-wage jobs are available for those that do not pursue a college degree. Research and Development Do not look at jobs that are here today, but turn towards future jobs. Ancillary businesses connected to larger employers. Multi-craft maintenance is the way to go and need more people to fill those jobs. Grow Licking County Economic Development Action Plan, February

3 Manufacturing. Focus is on automation with IT and computer programming. Need to upskill existing manufacturing workforce. Seeing a surge in healthcare. CTEC is offering STNA programming, per-requisite for COTC nursing programming. Human Machine Interface, programmable logic controller, PLC Programming; need employees that can troubleshoot to fix those computers and machines and robots. Data analytics. What needs to be done keep young people in Licking County? Need to have centralized hubs of activity. Mixed used developments. Investment in downtown Newark is having the impact of getting people to want to move back to LC. Need more of that activity. Have a lot of things to do in Licking, we just need to publicize it more. BeanStalk, Albany, NY program. Getting college students rooted to stay in community. Need a cultural shift to get people to want to stay and work here. Jobs that will keep young people here. Not just manufacturing jobs. Millennials are getting older and need to be in affordable place. Cost of living is a huge benefit of the county. Rotary, Kiwanis and other community groups and events are a big draw. Have to get younger people more engaged in leadership positions. Need communication and education on committees and organizations available in the County. What educational and training programs are not being addressed with today s workforce efforts in Licking County? Need a workforce development think tank. Skilled trades need a seat at the table of every single high school like colleges and military get. Kids need to know there is something other than retail and restaurants. Need skilled trades people. STEM is great but we are losing track of trades. Education program needed to get kids out of high school and straight into manufacturing jobs. Need to look for refugees and immigrants to fill jobs that are not being filled. CTEC is doing some robotics training at high school but not doing enough. Develop a pathway from high school robotics into adult program. Mobile workforce program, take a bus around to schools to let them know what STEM and manufacturing look like. Need every level of worker to help communities survive. Need to growing list of companies that will take international students from Denison. Grow Licking County Economic Development Action Plan, February

4 What are the biggest challenges for Licking Co and how do we address them? Workforce is our biggest challenge. Number one challenge to attracting and keeping employers. Workforce is the natural resource of today. Difficult to find lowest tier of manufacturing jobs. Need to pool workforce efforts of manufacturers Infrastructure needs. Better transportation and public transportation. Fiber optic. Sewer. No water and sewer along SR 161. Sewer/water, challenge from New Albany all the way to Newark. Development follows sewer lines. Growing existing business should be a greater focus not just attraction. Big money people are afraid of the younger generation; young people are committed to being here. Use them for their talents. How would you define success a decade from now regarding economic development? Less poverty, more diversity. Focus on decreasing poverty level; strategically position ourselves to provide opportunities for all people. Place where people want to live, work and play in a healthy way. Continual population growth. Solved underemployment problem. Smart growth; learning lessons from other communities. Controlled and managed growth; maintain character but still have growth. Keep the young people at home. Need leadership and champion for incentives. Balance between class 1 and class 2 tax base; state average is 75/25 and need to get to that goal. Equality between commercial and residential. Less burden on residential. Diversity of organizations and businesses. Better range of housing options. What investments need to be made or continued to be made in the County around transportation, infrastructure and workforce? Public transportation. Anomatic has people walking to work or can t get to work because of lack of transportation. Transportation infrastructure. Main corridors are bottlenecks. SR 16 and SR 310 are 2-lane roads until you get to SR 161. Thornwood Crossing was a huge help. Water and sewer between New Albany and Granville and Johnstown. Broadband infrastructure. Granville, Alexandria and other rural parts of the County don t have technology infrastructure to attract new business. Grow Licking County Economic Development Action Plan, February

5 Investment in training. Need to have local training programs. Apprenticeship programs. Poor cell coverage in certain parts of the County. Affordable housing. Are the business and education communities adequately aligned and communicating to address workforce issues? There is no education consortium amongst Licking County entities. There is a disconnect; employers say what they need and educators say they provide it but there is still a gap. CTEC, COTC and OSU seem to work well together to develop new programs for businesses. Businesses are being asked to attend too many meetings. A Business-Education Consortium needs to develop to bring all businesses and educational institutions together on a regular basis and talk through workforce needs. Provide a program for educators and guidance counselors in the summer to educate them on manufacturing. Grow Licking County Economic Development Action Plan, February