A delegation of Owensboro-Daviess County business leaders and government officials made the rounds Wednesday on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to express the community’s priorities to Kentucky’s legislative representatives.
Dave Kirk, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce, said he was excited about the response the 19-member delegation received.
“This was my first time as the president of the chamber to get to go on this trip, but from what I gathered from the other attendees who have been before, it’s probably one of the most responsive groups that we’ve met with,” Kirk said. “Everybody was engaged and seemed interested, and we felt like we got our message out there. Now the key is to follow up. So we’ll shoot those emails our for letters of support next week, and then just reminding them of what we talked about.
“But I was incredibly happy. People were engaged and wanted to listen and wanted to know what Owensboro is doing.”
Kirk said the requests presented were determined after meetings with the chamber board and other local leaders who participated in the trip.
Becoming a member of the Delta Regional Authority (DRA) was a major topic during the meeting with Sen. Rand Paul. The DRA is a federal-state partnership created by Congress in 2000 to promote economic development and improve the quality of life in 225 economically distressed counties and parishes across multiple states, including Kentucky.
“We are not in the program, and it takes an act of Congress to be eligible to be in the DRA,” Kirk said. “So we talked to him about that, trying to get some support out of the Senate. Congressman (Brett) Guthrie has been very supportive on the House side, so we figured the more support we can get, the better chance that before the end of the year we could get in that.”
Kirk said the driver for wanting to be designated as a DRA county is the potential funding it provides, with the federal government allocating around $4 million annually to the program.
“If you’re not in that pool of counties, you can’t apply for grant funding,” Kirk said. “A lot of it is workforce development, stuff for the community college. There’s a lot of opportunities that unfortunately we can’t access because we’re not part of it. So we were advocating to get us in there so that it opens a pot of money for a lot of companies and education institutions in Owensboro.”
Kirk said they also discussed HealthForce Kentucky, the collaborative health care workforce initiative that is striving to combat state shortages through immersive training. The initiative partners with nine colleges and universities alongside numerous P-12 school districts across 16 Kentucky counties.
“He’s a physician, optometrist, so we wanted to make sure that he was aware of that,” Kirk said.
Owensboro-Daviess County Regional Airport’s need for a new terminal was also discussed. The current terminal is about 70 years old.
“We’ve had some support from the state and local government, and we wanted to make sure that they’re aware that we’d really like to get in the FAA budget,” Kirk said.
Discussions also centered around an infrastructure project at the Owensboro Riverport Authority, as well as the erosion issue on the Ohio River riverbank.
“(Owensboro City Manager) Nate Pagan did a fantastic job of illustrating there is still a need to sure up the bank where the water just hits it so hard there,” Kirk said. “That was well received.”
In addition to Paul and Guthrie, the delegation met with Reps. James Comer, Morgan McGarvey and Andy Barr — the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat held by Mitch McConnell. They also met with McConnell staffers.
“We had a packed schedule, and we wanted to make sure to get the word out for Owensboro,” Kirk said. “It was definitely worth getting up there and making sure we were heard.”
By Scott Hagerman Messanger-Inquirer