For better or worse, the term “economic development” is an exceptionally expansive expression. From promoting farmers’ markets to nanotechnology firms, almost every conceivable constituency in a town will have its own interpretation of its meaning.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that except for those brave souls who have those words in their job descriptions. Inevitably, residents and officeholders like to hold these folks accountable for every aspect related to a town’s future prosperity regardless of someone’s actual scope of work.
One of these courageous ones who are navigating community expectations is Chestertown’s Kay MacIntosh. Hired three years ago to help manage the rollout of the town’s new arts and entertainment district, Kay also has been tasked with re-establishing its Main Street program and coordinating the over $300,000 in grants raised by her office through various state programs to improve downtown.
The Spy sat down with Kay recently to understand more about her work, the projects that are the front-burner now, and her thoughts on the state of Chestertown’s economic development as we come to the end of 2019.
This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about Main Street and Chestertown’s Arts and Entertainment district, please go here.
Tom Timberman says
Having spent 19 years leading economic development teams or advising governments overseas, I am always interested to learn about other people’s approaches to improving the economies of communities. I learned early, that the metric for these efforts is the positive impact on the people who live there. It’s not the amount of money spent on projects or the number of people attending events, its the number of new jobs created, the additional revenue for the local government, how many younger people have stayed, not left, or decided to move into the community from somewhere else, because they believe it offers good present value and a promise of a better future for them and their families..
Tom Timberman
Marty Stetson says
Kay did not just hit the ground running but more like a galloping after she was hired.. She has done a great job of creating new neat things to do in Chestertown but also revitalizing some of the old things that had been done before, but now being done even better. I once was told by someone who lives out of the immediate area there always seems to be something going on in Chestertown, that is music to my ears. It usually means there is a ringing of cash registers that make up the backdrop to that music.