Group seeking borderless area

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April 2, 2008

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Wed Apr 02, 2008, 09:34 PM CDT

By Melissa Dunson

mdunson@joplinglobe.com

During an afternoon trip from Northpark Mall in Joplin to Buffalo Run Casino in Miami, Okla., there is an invisible line.

A similar line also exists between the Joplin airport and the Chili’s restaurant in Pittsburg, Kan.

There are no guard boxes or barbed-wire fences marking the boundaries between Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas, yet they limit funding, communication and job creation.

“Geography says that there are state and county lines, but the reality is that we are already linked,” said Rob O’Brian, president of the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce. “Now we need to become borderless.”

That idea of creating a “borderless” region of Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas brought together more than 100 people from 13 area chambers of commerce Wednesday at the Joplin Holiday Inn.

By the end of the meeting, the group of economic developers, educators, elected officials and business leaders created a steering committee to file the paperwork for a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that would serve as a regional chamber of commerce. The group also formed eight other committees to deal with regional issues including education, community appearance, infrastructure, tourism, marketing and economic development.

O’Brian said the groups will meet again in June to discuss their progress, and again in August for a session with state and federal legislators.

The borderless region will require support from lawmakers in all of the states involved. O’Brian said some of the group’s ideas toward regionalism need state and federal legislators to pool resources, and actually change laws to allow money and information to flow across state lines.

“We’ve never heard of anything like this before,” O’Brian said. “As far as we know, it’s fairly groundbreaking. It could be a historic effort.”

Unique suggestions

The session produced some unique suggestions, including one from Steve Lawver, Carl Junction community and economic development director, who proposed connecting the entire Four-State Area with a wireless Internet connection. He said it would psychologically create a region even before legislators break down the funding barriers among states, and give the region a technological and educational edge.

Lawver said some large metropolitan areas in Texas, California and Massachusetts have tried the concept, with public-private partnerships being the most successful.

Jasper County, he said, has been experimenting with a scaled-down version of the idea for its emergency services.

Other ideas included creating a regional brochure and Web site listing all the activities and events in the Four-State Area for use in a regional marketing campaign, and fostering pocket communities for young families, entertainment lovers or retirees in individual cities, while building one major regional identity.

Competition

One of the major barriers the regional identity faces is overcoming the competition mind-set. For years, the states have competed for jobs, workers, tax dollars, students and even natural resources. But Kyle Hickam, a Joplin insurance agent who attended the meeting Wednesday, said neighboring communities are not the enemy, and that a unified push could save jobs from going overseas.

“We can compete together against bigger cities in a way we couldn’t alone,” Hickam said. “Springfield (Mo.) is a small community compared to what we are together.”

Water-supply issues will have to be addressed before the competitive mind-set can be done away with, said Jasper County Commissioner John Bartosh. Cross-state water issues have caused friction in recent years, especially between Missouri and Kansas because of differing water laws. A three-state water coalition is trying to address those issues.

Blake Benson, president of the Pittsburg (Kan.) Area Chamber of Commerce, said it is possible to balance local identity with regional uniformity, and that Four-State Area residents have been doing it for years without thinking about it.

“The Joplin area is the driving force of this area, but anyone can tell you that Joplin needs the surrounding areas to be that driving force,” Benson said.

An ETC Institute study conducted for the Joplin Metropolitan Planning Organization last year suggested that Joplin has about 48,000 residents, but a daytime population of 220,000 people. On any given day, the study reported, at least 115,000 people outside the immediate area travel to Joplin.

One way that was mentioned to break down state-to-state competition would be a regional revenue-sharing program requiring all communities to put money toward marketing the region. That would benefit all the communities when one city in the region gets a new employer or a grant. O’Brian said the idea would require legislative support.

Melissa Dunson is the business writer for The Joplin Globe.

Grant funds

The Workforce Investment Board of Southwest Missouri recently received a $250,000 Regional Innovation Grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to research and implement a Quad States Regional Transformation Initiative, including some of the issues raised during the meeting Wednesday. Jasen Jones, executive director of the investment board, said other federal funds are available to do more regional, cross-state development projects.