Windfall profits

One of the blogs I read is called Evolving Excellence. It is generally focused on a manufacturing process called "lean." Today the author takes a poke at what he calls the economic illiterate and the subject of oil company windfall profits.

Since oil prices have jumped in the past year (I remember 19 cents a gallon), folks are going bonkers at the amount of profit oil companies are making. Go to the following site and see what other companies are making and not getting the "trash news" oil is getting.

http://www.superfactory.typepad.com/

Economists are changing their tune

I have a subscription to a daily review of news items prepared by US News and World Report for ICMA – the International Association of City/County Management.

Wednesday's edition referenced a Wall Street Journal article that said economists are changing their minds about the recession. Evidently "it took a detour." Wachovia economist John Bryson now says the chance of a recession is 45% which is down from 90% in April.

This is good news because what I see here in Hillsboro contradicts the notion of a recession as well. Two key indicators everyone here can see for themselves. Rod's Tires is building additional space and Elcon Electric is building a new building. Both are in our Hillsboro Heights subdivision. The two other indicators are the agreements the council approved this week selling land for two more businesses to begin. We are keeping a number of other eggs warm waiting for them to hatch.

These activities make the opportunities we will have with Buxton and their retail business possibilities more positive. When we can go into a potential business partner and cite the activity it is hard for a business partner to ignore us. They want to be where things are happening. Right now, things are happening.

Kansas Sampler Fest

I just returned from Concordia and the first year of their Kansas Sampler Fest. Every town gets a two year contract. This was their first.

Driving there Friday was interesting with the wind blowing and storm clouds forming. Earlier in the day, my wife drove to Colorado Springs and she said the driving conditions were Terrible. For dinner, I was escorted to the Annual Rotary District Convention dinner where I heard one of the smartest ladies I have met. I wish I had her name right now to share with you. She is the construction project manager for Horizon Wind Energy, the company building the wind farm in Cloud County. It is a project I was aware of while I worked there but because it was county, I wasn't directly involved. It is great to see the project progressing. There will be 67 wind towers constructed before the end of November. Each will generate 3 megawatts of energy. One tower would take care of our electric needs in the winter. We need 2+ for the summer

The Kansas Sampler Fest is an annual event to promote tourism in Kansas. Everything was Kansas. Folks showed off things they make here, events to go to and places you could go just to enjoy. Some of the things folks were doing were driving to every County Courthouse, buying fabric in every county (I think there is a quilter there), and buying a fence post in every county.

Saturday morning I met my Sampler Partner, Marion County Economic Development Director Teresa Huffman. We started putting information bags together early and it seemed that we were doing that constantly from 10 AM to 2 PM. Scattered throughout the day were familiar faces from Concordia and the surrounding area. I saw a number of folks I used to work with – Joe, Darrel, Charles, Art, Izzy (The octogenarian promoter of Concordia, Larry, Larry (both were not me), Lisa, several fire department personnel including one we sponsored for paramedic school, Ruby, Cher. One of my friends sang Happy Birthday to me. One special sight was seeing Dana. She is just recovering from cancer treatment.

Sunday was less hectic from a crowd perspective. The first entertainment I listened to was "The Brothers and Sisters" from Goessel. I recognized Kathy from our P.O. and Goessel City Clerk Anita Goertzen. One of the guys sounded just like John Denver. Incredible!

While I enjoyed seeing friends the most important thing was promoting Marion County to folks who were not familiar with us. We had two gifts to give-away. They were a night in one of seven bed & breakfast establishments in the county and dinner in any of our county's restaurants. I learned the secret to signing your name and dropping a registration in to a "chance box." That is why it is still a secret!

One key point in attending a festival like this is getting our name in front of folks who would visit and spend a little time here. We distributed a number of boxes of stuff about the county's activities. My obvious opportunity was talking about the Art's and Craft's Festival in September. It was fun to hear from the folks who came to Hillsboro in the past and how they liked our town.

I hope a number of you will be able to join me there next year.

Waste Treatment Plant Started

The election season is nearly over for municipalities. My blog entries are intentionally sparse during this period. Things are pretty quiet here compared to some places I have been. My general comment about elections is that "you must vote to have any chance to complain."

We are under way on the construction of the new wastewater treatment plant east of town. We hope that we will be treating water this time next year. When I came to work last summer, Delores said that she was frustrated with how long it is taking to get started. That was a clue to "make something happen." We had to "urge" the engineers to move ahead and "urge" the Federal agency providing the funding to clear the path so we could start bidding. At one point, we needed Congressman Jerry Moran's office for help. The help was appreciated and we are working.

The treatment process will be different than our current facility. We are going to a "lagoon system" from a "mechanical" plant. The biggest difference in the two systems is the lower electrical use that will be in the lagoon process. Our current plant requires the use of blowers to put large amounts of air in the waste treatment tanks. That air keeps the bugs healthy as they do the things they do. The "bugs are a number of single cell organisms that feed on the dissolved waste.

I wondered how I would use my high school biology course – now I know.

Getting things done

One of the stories I heard on my short drive home tonight was one on NPR about the book "Getting Things Done." http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19105832

Being a manager at any level is about getting things done and any tips you can learn to be better at it is worth the time. NPR has an audio clip of the story they ran that you can listen to as well.

Hey, it is just over 4 minutes. You can stop and listen at least that long!

Street Sweeping

I was talking with Steve Millett today about today's street department activity. He was working at sweeping the streets.

It is a normal task for this time of year. They are spending their time picking up the sand that was spread during our earlier snow and ice storms. If you didn't know, we purchased a new sweeper last summer. It does a great job. Since the curbs in Hillsboro are not the same from block to block, the operator has to adjust the brooms for each block. It is one of the things that help us clean properly.

Steve mentioned today that cleaning in the spring is more difficult than other times because we still have some leaves in the curbs. He has been sweeping each block up to four times to get the cleaning done due to the matted leaves and accumulated dirt/sand.

As we move into Spring expect to see us "spiff" up the town and get rid of the vestiges of winter. Oops, the weather forecast has flurries predicted tonight. Maybe there will be some more sweeping after the scooping!

A need to Brag

I came in to work this morning with snow dragging under my car as I backed out of the drive way onto a freshly plowed street.

I have the pleasure of working with some very fine street crew workers here as well as Concordia, Baldwin City and Jerome, Idaho who clear our streets so we can get around. (These are towns where I worked that had regular snow fall.)

To get ahead of the traffic means they had to start pretty early. Key to doing a good job and getting downtown ready for business is grading before traffic starts to pack the snow down.

Here in Hillsboro, we are starting to pay attention to streets again after a period of ignoring them. The time between John Unruh and Dale Dalke has been stressful on the street infrastructure. We will be paying for it for awhile. In the meantime Dale and the crew of Steve Millett and Lance Booker will be working hard to make our driving experiences better.

While I am remembering folks, Ron and Jim in Concordia, Bill in Baldwin City and John in Jerome - you guys rock!