A large mix of Raton citizens including business and property owners, entreprenuers, long-time residents and newcomers converged on the Raton Convention Center on Thursday evening, March 7th for an economic development open house.
Adam Hughes, CEO of Better City, opened up the discussion by addressing the group and giving a brief history of the Ogden, UT-based company who was contracted by the Raton City Commission to help in the city’s economic development endeavors.
Adam Hughes of Better City addresses the 90 plus in attendance at the Economic Dev. Open House
Raton City Manager Scott Berry began his talk by telling the assemblage that Raton’s economic doldrums were not unique to this town and the City Commission was searching for entities that could help come up with a plan of action for revitalizing our base. Better City submitted a proposal that the Commission researched and liked and contracted with the company for its services.
Hughes and Eric Gibson came to Raton this week to assess the city’s resources and conducted interviews with over 30 business owners and civic and community leaders to try and understand what our unique assets and challenges are.
In his remarks, Hughes said, “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is today!” With that Hughes pointed out the complete revitalization is going to take decades, but the community has many building blocks to start with. “Your downtown is the character of your community”, Hughes said, and noted the Shuler Theater and the Raton Museum were very impressive anchors in the downtown district.
Better City also had an open mic portion of the meeting, in which questions were asked that included: What could the City do better to help businesses; What are your ideas for economic development and what are the best things about Raton.
Hughes concluded Better City’s portion of the two hour meeting with three recommendations.
- Work Force Development. There are businesses here already up and running that could expand if they had a trained work force. Education is a key component to economic development.
- Entrepreneurial Infrastructure.
- Sustainable Program for Economic Development.
Also on the evening’s agenda were two other partners Grow Raton and the Center for Community Innovation.
Patricia Duran with Grow Raton said the most important aspect of economic development is getting people involved. Grow Raton is providing several services to Raton businesses, free of charge, and is also hosting a Recharge our Community Economy Workshop Series. The first workshop is scheduled for March 21, with free registration and lunch provided.
Jessica Barfield represented The Center for Community Innovation, and started by saying, “Actions dictate priorities.” Jessica talked about the recent branding the City accepted and also said they have reconnected with NM True for some print ads in Texas magazines. Barfield also touted the Coal Camp Kitchen that is getting ready to gear up for one commercial operator with several other potential users looking at the process. The recent “Libraries as Launchpads program was very successful with Raton attracting 12 creative startups as compared to Las Cruces’ 6. Barfield also said Raton and Trinidad are set to cooperate in a creative start up series in May for a four week program.
