By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
In another swing at the Ellis County Coalition for Economic Development, one Hays city commissioner accused the organization of being incompetent, or worse, intentionally hiding important information from the commission during Thursday night’s work session. However, the accusations were found to be unwarranted as neither claim was found to be the fault of the Coalition staff.
The accusations came on the heels of the commission selecting Vice Mayor Shaun Musil to assume the role Henry Schwaller had as the city’s representative on the ECCED Board of Directors. Schwaller told the commission, however, that he had a condition for that measure.
“I would absolutely support him representing and serving this body,” Schwaller said, if “he remains very firm with this group, plays the role of devil’s advocate and makes sure they stick to what they say they are doing.”
He further elaborated his concerns to the commission.
“I have two concerns,” Schwaller said. “We did not fund them unless they provided an update by the end of the year. … Where is that update?”
Later in the meeting, Hays City Manager Toby Dougherty explained the Coalition board — a board Schwaller served on — had called for the delay.
“We did have it scheduled for this month, an update on Coalition activities. We also had the economic policy revisions and the Coalition board wanted another chance to review those revisions before we brought it to you to make sure they were OK with them. … (Coalition Executive Director Aaron White) and I talked and moved both of those to the first work session in January,” Dougherty said.
Schwaller’s second concern centered around a company that operates in both Hays and Ellis.
“I learned today, actually last night, via another person, that the company that used to be called Wheelchairs of Kansas, also known as Sizewise, has relocated its headquarters to Johnson County and that is being trumpeted as a win by the by the Kansas Department of Commerce,” Schwaller said. “How is this a win and when did the Coalition know one of our major employers, home-grown in Ellis County, left?”
“It’s not good,” Musil said.
“So they had told us nothing — either they didn’t know, or they have been hiding the fact,” Schwaller said.
However, neither situation was true as the change has no impact on the Ellis/Hays operations, according to Sizewise. “We were in Kansas City, Mo., and we moved to Lenexa, Kan.,” John Blackburn, Sizewise marketing coordinator told Hays Post. “Nothing changed over there.”
“I want to consider ourselves having a split headquarters,” between Ellis/Hays and the Kansas City area, he said. “The (office) that moved was the Kansas City, Mo., to Lenexa (office).”
“Nobody from Ellis County did move, but a big portion of our operation is in the Kansas City area,” Blackburn said. “I don’t know if that affects Ellis County. It would probably be statewide.”
White declined to comment on last week’s statements.
While the Coalition is scheduled to appear before the Commission, it will miss the end of the year deadline set by the Commission and may be unrelated to the organizations funding.
“I’m concerned because, in order to receive funding for next year, the coalition was supposed to report to us…by the end of this month, otherwise they don’t get funding,” Schwaller said in a phone interview after the story posted online.
Schwaller was also concerned that the information about Sizewise was not presented to the Commission in a timely fashion, another in a trend of situations not reported to the Commission.
“The point is this is one of four things, we have either read about on the Hays Post or have heard second hand, when Aaron should contact the commission first.”