Ed. Note: Below is the transcript of the interview with Councilman Greg Fast. Fast is running for re-election to the Southwest District of the Hutchinson City Council.
Marc Jacobs: This morning we are visiting with council member Greg Fast. He is running for re-election in this Southwestern district. Good morning, sir.
Greg Fast: Good morning, Marc, thanks for having me this morning and and allowing me to speak.
Marc Jacobs: So thank you for taking time out of your busy day to come in and visit with us. Tell me a little bit about Greg Fast, those people who might be new to your district or might be new to town, and they're, going to, they're going to the polls that they may not know who you are.
Greg Fast: Well, I'm a local business owner and a lifetime residence, except for a couple years, a lifetime resident of Hutchinson, married to my wife, Carly. Her main name was Madeline, so many people will know that name, but we have we're a blended family. We have six children and we have two dogs. The dogs are more of a problem than the children are. But anyway, very, very happy to represent the Southwest District of Hutchinson for the last four years, it's I'm constantly learning. I realized right after I was seated four years ago, how little I actually knew about city government. But I think, I think now the experience is so valuable in the relationships that I've fostered, but a little bit about myself. I own a lawn service. I own property, commercial property, and then and then I own, also own some storage buildings that are storage rentals, that you would store your overflow or your stuff and but the main driver for me has been a lawn care company that I've had for 30 years and started from one yard. And so I have that business mind, I suppose, and sometimes it gets me in trouble when we try to run a city like a business. So anyway, that's a little bit about me.
Marc Jacobs: Starting off, how should Hutch look at attracting How should Hutch balance attracting new industries like renewable energy or advanced manufacturing while also trying to support small, locally owned businesses and downtown revitalization?
Greg Fast: Well, I appreciate that question, Marc. I think that they all work in unison, and I think we as a city are in need of significant job growth and higher paying jobs. I feel like economic development is my strong point. I know that the small businesses will thrive if we have people here working and churning those dollars back in our city. I think anybody that knows me knows that I do live downtown. I develop two properties downtown, and I live upstairs in one of those. So downtown is very important to me, and I'm very proud of the fact that that you know, on the economic side, have been able to be a big part in luring ever G here for their their project. I might mention that's the single largest project that Hutchinson has ever landed, and we're going to start turning dirt soon on that.
Marc Jacobs: So all right, this one kind of goes hand in hand with the previous question. But what specific steps could the city take, or would you take to address Hutchinson's housing shortest, particularly affordable and workforce housing. How would, how should the city partner with nonprofits and developers to attain that?
Greg Fast: Well, I think that if anybody watches the council meeting, you could, you could watch last, last week's meeting, and know that we are, we've done a private public partnership, where the city bought some land, specifically 11 acres and we're partnering with a company out of Manhattan to develop 30 homes on that land. And we put out a an RFP for that work, a request for proposals. We we got one from them that that request was good for our local developers. Anybody that wanted to participate could give us a proposal. And I think that is one of the things that we're doing as a city to try to solve our housing issues. I think the the Community Foundation is trying to help by putting some money in, in to that, that housing initiative, to try to help people get into those homes, but, but I think that that this is where the experience comes into play. And you know, the track record of what we as a council have done, you know, over the last. Four years, and we know there's a housing shortage based on the data that we're seeing, and we're trying to fix it. And so that, that is one thing. I don't remember exactly the second part of your question, but, but I do think that that we do have good developers here in town, Dave friends building houses still, and Jim Strawn, we helped him with an Rh ID out out on 43rd street. So we're trying to address it. Marc, it's always slower than we would like, but we are.
Marc Jacobs: Hutchinson faces aging infrastructure and limited budgets. How do you, how does the council, how would you prioritize spending on roads, water system, public safety and other core services?
Greg Fast: Well, once again, if you watch the last the very last Council meeting, we're addressing some of these infrastructure problems. We know that some of our infrastructure has been let go long before I arrived on the scene four years ago, and we're making headway to fix our roads, our water service, our storm water, our RO plant out south of town, needs, or excuse me not, our RO plant, our wastewater treatment facility south of town, needs millions of dollars of work out there, and we are addressing that. We are addressing that with some increasing water rates. Again, I would encourage people to get involved by watching these city council meetings. We had a whole presentation on water rates and sewer rates, for example. And you know, when I look at all this data, I look at it, the charts and all of that, but, but I want to be sure that we're, we're treating people fairly with the proper rates, the proper taxes, all of those things. And if, if people will get involved and find that information, they'll find that we are one of the lowest cost water services in in the state and comparable cities, same way with storm water, our wastewater treatment charges, they are, they are super low. So we are addressing those. I you know, my editorial comment about roads is, I think we have pretty good roads here in Hutch, and we, we work hard to keep those and I think, I think that every eight years, every road gets touched, I feel like we're doing a pretty good job with that. As far as public safety, that's very important, and our fire and police are now fully staffed. I know that the current Council has really taken it serious pay and benefits and trying to attract people to those positions. We were losing firefighters to Wichita. We had a police shortage there for a while, but both of those departments are fully staffed, or almost fully staffed, and I feel like we've made a real difference in making Hutchison the best employer around again, those, those are really what we should be doing as a city, streets, infrastructure, you know, public works and public safety. So anyway, hopefully people are noticing that we're taking that stuff, that role as a city very, you know, very seriously, and that that's what we should be doing.
Marc Jacobs: This one comes up from time to time, and people ask me about it, but what role should the city of Hutch play in supporting parks and arts and community events? And how can the city make these amenities, anemones, more available to residents?
Greg Fast: Well, I think, I think we have many parks and many, many amenities at the city. We can always, you know, always do better to improve, to improve our parks. I would mention that a lot of people don't realize this, but the city of Hutch has an accredited Zoo, and for a town our size, that's very, very rare for us to actually have an accredited Zoo. So we have a lot of things that people can do and participate in. You know. Many, many community events. If you can't find something to do in Hutchison, it seems to me, you're not looking very hard. We have festivals such as Smallville. I mean, we closed down our entire downtown, you know, a couple weeks ago for the rod run. I mean, this is a regional event where people come in and I just, you know, I love our town, and I feel like, I feel like there's plenty to do. I feel like our parks are there, you know, we're, we're again, just at last week's council meeting, we're putting $150,000 came in just a little bit below the budgeted amount to put in a park and have some play equipment put in at the fairgrounds Park. And we use the data we know which parks are getting used the most. That is one that is in need of some improvements, and we're improving that. We were improving some, some pickleball courts. All of those things are important to make the make the city run and make people happy and attractive.
Marc Jacobs: All right, we have about a minute and a half left one last question, fiscal responsibility and transparency. How can you ensure, as a council member that taxpayer dollars are being spent efficiently and that residents have a clear understanding of how those decisions are made at City Hall.
Greg Fast: Well, I think people have to get involved and have to ask questions. I like it when people ask me questions, and I I'm a very fiscally conservative business owner. I've had to be in the years I've been in business and I think that that we try to do that as a city, and we're getting back to our core functions, I will say, I told this story when, when I was asked about this in an earlier event. You know, I make connections with people. Made a connection with somebody from the EPA. We're, we're spending, we were spending over a half a million dollars a year pumping water into remediation wells out south of town. You know, with that connection, you know, Enrico and I met this person, we've saved the city $200 - $250,000 a year by asking questions. And those are efficiencies that we're continuing to do. We do things like when we when we fix a street, we go from the middle of the street all the way to the sidewalk. That's efficiency, and hopefully the residents can see that we're trying to be efficient and trying to manage their dollars.
Marc Jacobs: All right. I thank you for all right. I thank you for coming in this morning. Any closing any parting words you want to give me? You got about 45 seconds to a minute?
Greg Fast: No, I would just encourage people to get out and vote. I want them to also really do a little research on who they're voting for and I would appreciate your vote again for another four years. I can't serve any longer than two terms, so I will be done in four years, but hopefully folks appreciate the direction that the current Council has taken the city. Lot of good things ahead for Hutchison,
Marc Jacobs: Thank you, sir. We've been talking with Councilman Greg Fast. He is up for re-election in the Southwest District. Get out and vote. Election day is next Tuesday on November 4.