Allen County commissioners displayed leadership Tuesday when they kept the county’s future as their goal and decided to help an area hotelier set up shop in Iola.
Commissioners OK’d an investment of $167,500 to purchase land for a future 55-room hotel, the Iola Sleep Inn & Suites.
A 2 percent tax assessed to hotel guests, which the City of Iola hopefully will approve, will pay back the county over the course of the next few years.
More importantly, this investment will help grow the area’s tax base by more than $2 million in the first 10 years, according to developer Bill Michaud, Fort Scott, who has similar properties in Fort Scott and Atchison.
The more businesses and industries we can lure our way, the lower we can keep sales and property taxes, utility fees, etc.
The more hotel guests that come our way, the more people we will have buying gas, shopping in our stores and eating in our restaurants.
Yes, we can take a stance that says our taxes should not support new businesses. And they will look elsewhere.
Fort Scott and Atchison rolled out the red carpets for Mr. Michaud, giving him the land for his hotels outright, glad to have his business.
The city of Humboldt was reported to be willing to do the same.
ALMOST EVERY year, for the past 100 years, Allen County’s population has shrunk, making the burden greater for existing citizens to support public functions such as a water department, street and alley crews, law enforcement, a hospital and our schools.
In 1920, our county population was 23,509. In 2010, it was 13,371 — almost half as big.
This is a nationwide trend. Younger generations are flocking to cities, making the competition for rural communities to attract new business fierce.
That’s why Allen County and the City of Iola have paired with Iola Industries these past several years to fund the position of an economic development director under the auspices of Thrive Allen County.
David Toland, Thrive executive director, first held the position, recently handing it off to the very capable Bill Maness, who worked for several years as a district representative for U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran. (Think of the contacts he now has.)
