ADECA Director Kenneth Boswell, left, shares a laugh with Wallace State Vice President Dr. Tomesa Smith, center, and Hanceville Mayor Kenneth Nail, right, on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017 at a lunch on the Wallace State campus. / W.C. Mann
HANCEVILLE – Kenneth Boswell, Gov. Kay Ivey’s appointed director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA) visited Cullman County on Thursday, where he met with local leaders and visited ADECA-funded projects in Holly Pond and at the Duck River Reservoir.
ADECA is a state agency that serves as a clearing house for grant monies throughout the state. It distributes hundreds of millions of dollars throughout Alabama, to cities, counties, nonprofit organizations and others. According to ADECA, “Our grants support economic development projects, infrastructure improvements, job training, energy conservation, law enforcement, traffic safety, recreation development and assistance to low-income families. We also work to monitor and protect Alabama’s water resources, and we distribute state and federal surplus property to local governments and other qualified organizations.”
After meeting with the city and county school superintendents at the Cullman Economic Development Agency office in Cullman, Boswell headed to Wallace State Community College (WSCC) in Hanceville, where he visited the Sequence Health facility, which was funded in part by an ADECA grant. He then met with mayors, members of the Cullman County Commission, and others over lunch in the Bailey Center on campus. In attendance were WSCC President Dr. Vicki Karolewics, Cullman-Jefferson Gas District CEO Brian Dove, Sen. Paul Bussman, R-Cullman, Rep. Randall Shedd, R-Fairview and Rep. Corey Harbison, R-Good Hope, the Cullman County commissioners, representatives of the Cullman City Council and Cullman Area Chamber of Commerce, city and county economic development staff, and others. Five of the county’s mayors attended: Woody Jacobs, Cullman; Kenneth Nail, Hanceville; Bill Oliver, Holly Pond; Kenneth Kilgo, West Point; and Donnis Leeth, Colony.
Of his appointment to the post of ADECA director by Ivey, Boswell shared, “I said, ‘What, exactly, do you want me to do?’ And it was simple: her response was, ‘Help me build a better Alabama, one person at a time, one city at a time, and let’s leave it better than what we found.’ And I said, ‘That’s a pretty simple task.’”
Continued Boswell, “And she has charged me with some specialty items: things that are very high on her priority list. One of those would be broadband. We’re looking at some issues concerning broadband. One of the things that we cannot do as a state is be left behind as the nation is moving forward with infrastructure technology. We all know what the internet does for our communities, and for our society. Although I’m antiquated, worn out, and my 3-and-a-half-year-old (grandson) knows more about an iPhone than I do; the point is that’s our upcoming generation, and we need to be prepared to be able to continue to move this state forward.
“The next thing that I’ve been charged (with), outside the operational issues of the agency, is literally the census. Now, I’ll tell you I hope you’ve gotten your local letters, and I hope that you’re starting your process, because all of the pointers are moving in the direction that we are losing population. I’m of the opinion that we’re not losing it. I’m of the opinion that we are not getting to those people that are not participating.
“I need your help. We need to educate citizens, our constituents, from the perspective of: one–you’re not going to lose your identity to identity theft, two–you’re not going to lose your check, whether you’re retired or whether you may be drawing a disability check. All we want to know is how many people are in a household, and we need to get everybody counted.
“You say, ‘Why is it so important for us to be able to participate in the census?’ Well, if we don’t participate, those congressional dollars are going to stop flowing at the rate that they’re flowing now. So it’s very important to our communities, whether it be infrastructure dollars, whether it be law enforcement dollars, whether it be economic development dollars, or whatever it may be that passes through ADECA, that we keep that level up and, if anything else, get it higher, because, if we don’t keep our census numbers up, then naturally you’re going to lose a seat in Congress. So I ask you, I plead with you, mayors, that you please take that into consideration, get that out at every opportunity whether you have speaking engagements, whether you’re at a council meeting.”
Boswell gave the county leaders an overview of what ADECA does, along with pointers on how to approach the agency’s grant system. He especially encouraged projects related to job creation.
When asked what Cullman County should know about ADECA, Boswell replied, “It’s a tool that Gov. Ivey uses to improve the quality of life for the citizens of our state. And one of the things she said, as I said earlier, she wants to improve our state; she wants to leave it better than we found it, from that perspective. Gov. Ivey is a very compassionate and passionate human being, and that’s what ADECA does: help people and communities.”
After the meeting, Boswell continued touring the WSCC campus, before traveling to visit Carpenter’s Cabinet food bank in Holly Pond, the recreational trail system at the Duck River reservoir and various ADECA-supported projects in the city of Cullman.
Learn more about ADECA at http://adeca.alabama.gov.
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