"Many local officials in Central Kentucky are indicating interest in taking a collaborative regional approach to key issues common to their communities — from water supply to transportation. In an interview that can be heard in full online at www.bizlex.com, Business lexington Editor-in-Chief Tom Martin talks with Joe Graviss, former chairman of Bluegrass Tomorrow and as a developer and owner of eight McDonald's franchises in the region, a leader in the business and economic affairs of Central Kentucky.
TM: The runaway cost of employee pension and health care coverage for what is an aging workforce, one of the nation's worse statewide substance abuse epidemics, a water supply crisis — take your pick. Each of these issues, among others, in its own way bearing down very hard on area municipal and county governments, and as a result, these governments are increasingly hard pressed to provide the services and the amenities that they must in order to support competitive economies. You've been helping to lead a micro-regional approach to these problems, getting businesses, mayors, county leaders, civic leaders, and state legislators from all around the 18-county Bluegrass region together for what has been a series of regional summits. Can you tell us about that process and how it's faired so far?
JG: Yes, thank you, Tom. The board of Bluegrass Tomorrow, which is made up of civic and business leaders from around Central Kentucky, realized in late '06 that we were facing crises in our future in a number of areas. We needed to get our hands around the issues and try to come up with some solutions. And Bluegrass Tomorrow has always worked in a regional cooperative fashion, and we decided to undertake an economic analysis of the 18-county area to look at our fiscal capacity, our taxing district, our hospitals, our schools, our infrastructure and see, what are our current needs? What are our short falls? How does it look today, and how do we think it might look in the future? The result of that study came (as) some recommendations. And one of the recommendations was to convene some regional summits of elected officials from around the Bluegrass area to try to address these important issues from a regional perspective, because we realize that we can no longer go in 18 different directions. You've got each county with its own agenda and its own issues, and we end up fighting against each other in a race to the bottom. And the areas around the country and in Kentucky that are doing well are doing it collaboratively, and that's something that we really wanted to try to stress here in the Bluegrass was that collaboration, and we've had great success so far.
TM: ... Is there a traditional disconnect, do you think, between government and business and how people in these two sectors appreciate how their decisions and their actions impact each other?
JG: I don't know. I know (they are) two different types of entities with two different types of structures and processes and systems and people and demands. But I do know that we need each other and we have to work together and we can help each other. And we've realized that what the business community is looking for is an efficient and effective form of government that can be supported in their decisions to help grow the region properly. So it's interesting how we've been able to come together and bring the business sector and the government sector together for common purpose.
TM: You're a business man — why is it important to you that our local officials improve their working relationships across these many jurisdictional borders and boundaries that we have in the region?
JG: It's crucial that we work together for a variety of reasons. It starts with the motto of the state, you know: "United we stand, divided we fall." It started there, and it's evident in areas in the state and around the country that are having success. They're doing it collaboratively. They're doing it across governmental lines and they're organizing themselves in a synergistic way to create a greater value for not only potential businesses but the people that are already there.
TM: Back to the regional summit we were talking about just a minute ago and the process that is going on, the city and county officials who've been attending these summits sought out the help of some organizations for their expertise in the areas of government, business, regional planning, and that kind of thing. That Group of Five, or G5 as it's referred to, involves the Kentucky League of Cities, Commerce Lexington, the Bluegrass Area Development District and Bluegrass Tomorrow. What has been the outcome of their work?
JG: It's been tremendous. Initially we brought in all the elected officials from the 18-county area, asked them to bring their two greatest issues facing them in their area, whether their city or their county. We were lucky enough to receive from Toyota a facilitator named Tom Zawacki, who's been tremendous in working with us from Toyota and helping discuss these issues. And then the elected officials charged the G5 to go back and look at these 80-some odd issues that were brought to the table and to distill them down into the issues that are of the utmost importance and that, if we made tremendous progress in, would have the greatest impact in our region. And the Group of Five distilled them down to the water supply, substance abuse, revenue options, pension and health care costs and our jail dilemma that we're facing. And what we've done is we've gone back to the elected officials and said, "We've distilled your issues down. Here's what you told us. Did we hear it correctly?" And they said yes. And they've charged us now to go back and come up with action items and solutions that we could utilize regionally to really make some headway in these areas, whether it be in Frankfort with the legislators or in our local government, with our local agreements, or just understanding how to get it done.
TM: Would you say that these officials are very engaged in the process and are becoming even more so as it goes along?
JG: Yes, I really do. I think they recognize that we are in this together. We do have major problems. They realize that the public really is not as educated about how potentially bad some things really are, and they are embracing the opportunity to work with other officials to get the word out and to help each other try to solve these problems that we're all facing.
TM: I think that's going to be the subject of our next conversation, and it
should be.
JG: Great, looking forward to it.
TM: Where does it go from here?
JG: Well, the way the last regional government summit was left was that the elected officials said, "Okay, we agree with you." Tom Wsakki asked them for a show of hands. It was unanimous. We had tremendous support from not only the government officials — the business community was able to provide input at our last summit as well that we held at Keeneland. Keeneland has been great in working with us and providing great space. And so where we go from here is that we've been charged with coming up with solutions to the five major areas that we've determined that if we had major progress in would make a big difference in our region. And so that's where we're going, putting together solutions that we can present united as a region to help make some progress happen in these areas.
TM: Thank you Joe.
JG: Thank you.