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Chapter Three:
Next Up for Owensboro and Daviess County: A New Narrative That Stokes the Fires of Innovation
by Keith Schneider
October 17, 2011
Downtown Landscape Yields Promising Result
Meanwhile, the public investment has already prompted $32 million in private investment downtown in new shops, housing, and a 150-room downtown hotel. Taken together, Owensboro’s rebuilding campaign has spurred $172 million in public and private spending, generated more than 100 construction jobs, and over three dozen new private sector service jobs. And the numbers are growing.
Even more important than the investment totals is what the public decisions seemed to signal about Owensboro’s governing circuitry. The formula for success in the digital age, said city and county elected leaders, called for a rewiring of principles and values that helped businesses and institutions and didn’t just leave people to fend for themselves.
In developing, financing, and rebuilding downtown, Owensboro seems to be setting out to prove that governments working together can champion programs that are responsive, flexible, and heighten the sense of shared responsibility. Owensboro, it appears, is on the verge of a policy and investment breakthrough worthy of state and national attention.
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Recommendations for More Success
- Undertake a New Community Strategic Plan – A new strategic planning initiative is needed to propel the city and county to the next stage of its progress as a center of opportunity.
- Cultivate and Recruit Women to Serve as Elected and Appointed Leaders – Almost 52 percent of Daviess County’s adults are women and that percentage is not reflected in elected positions in the city or county governments.
- Strengthen Internal and External Marketing and Communications – More focused outreach is vital to show citizens why a publicly-funded program of education, downtown development, and innovation makes sense in strengthening the economy over the next generation.
- Establish a Joint City-County Office of the Ombudsman – Thin out the cross-cutting permitting process while also providing the fairness and access that citizens expect.
- Establish and Fund the Owensboro Promise – Provide every graduate of the six Owensboro, Daviess County, and Catholic high schools scholarships for tuition and fees to attend a two- or four-year college in or outside Kentucky.
- Establish the Owensboro Top 20 Young Achievers Program – Provide the most talented young adults the chance to be part of Owensboro’s future and to stay connected.
- Foster Local Foods and Develop More Recreational Infrastructure – Healthier cities note their success as a marketing advan- tage in promotional campaigns.
- Generate More Diversity in Civic Life and Improve Business – Recruit investment and development capital from Asia, and especially from China.
- Promote New and Cleaner Energy Sources – Owensboro’s city-owned utility should serve as an innova- tor in carbon reduction technology, conservation, effi- ciency, solar development and other cutting edge thinking about energy production and consumption.
- Strengthen Transportation Hubs, Build a Streetcar Line – Owensboro’s opportunities over the next two decades are significant in air, ground, and river transportation.
- Put a Brake On Sprawl – Replace the love affair with big surface parking lots with a marriage to homes and businesses, recreation, and education infrastructure that is reachable on foot, on a bike, public transit, or a very short car ride.
- Promote Events and Bluegrass Music – Design and develop a new music center that houses the International Bluegrass Music Museum.