Community leaders talk growth

If Greater Winchester is going to pros­per, it will need more land for man­u­fac­tur­ing and bet­ter coöper­a­tion among its governments.

Those were two key take­aways from the Winchester-Clark County Chamber of Commerce Economic Outlook 2026 forum host­ed by Bluegrass Community and Technical College Jan. 15.

Brad Sowden, direc­tor of the Industrial Development Authority, said Winchester Industrial Park employs about 3,200 of the county’s 6,500 indus­tri­al work­ers, but it has only about 30 of its thou­sand acres left unsold.

What that means is that  “we need a new indus­tri­al park,” County Judge-Executive Les Yates said.

“I think that is one of the main chal­lenges of this city and coun­ty,” he said. “We need to some­how get togeth­er and get more land.”

Yates and Sowden were pan­elists for the Thursday forum, as were Mayor JoEllen Reed and City Manager Bruce Manley. 

Chamber President Tim Duncan served as moderator.

Of the 3,200 work­ers employed by about 40 busi­ness­es in the park, Sowden said, more than 40 per­cent of those are from out­side Clark County. Many “get off the Mountain Parkway every day” and not only earn, but spend their mon­ey here, he noted.

“If that’s not region­al, I don’t know what is,” Sowden said. “We’re cre­at­ing jobs for Eastern Kentucky as well as Winchester and Clark County” and oth­er communities.

Manley, who was BCTC’s Winchester cam­pus direc­tor before he came to work for the city five years ago, said the com­mu­ni­ty wasn’t grow­ing then. That’s changed.

“Winchester is not only grow­ing, but it’s boom­ing right now,” he said. 

That pos­es chal­lenges, but they’re “the right chal­lenges,” he added.

Those chal­lenges include expand­ing infra­struc­ture, improv­ing pub­lic safe­ty and lay­ing a foun­da­tion to sup­port businesses.

Housing and growth

Referencing the James Monroe Homes devel­op­ment on Old Boonesboro Road, which will include more than 400 new hous­es, Manley men­tioned that there are oth­er large res­i­den­tial devel­op­ments planned as well.

“In the next year or two, we’re going to have over a thou­sand addi­tion­al rooftops in this com­mu­ni­ty,” he said.

And those res­i­dents are going to be look­ing for places to eat, shop and go to school.

“You’ve got to pre­pare for that growth right now,” the city man­ag­er said.

The may­or offered that res­i­dences for low­er income peo­ple is also a need in the community.

“We can­not leave out afford­able hous­ing,” Reed said.

She told the audi­ence the city is work­ing with Habitat for Humanity of Madison and Clark Counties and the Kentucky River Foothills Development Council to buy blight­ed hous­es, raze them and build back on Lincoln Street and Mutual Avenue.

Asked what the com­mu­ni­ty is doing to make sure devel­op­ment doesn’t result in cost­ly sprawl and loss of prime farm­land, Sowden said there are mea­sures to address those con­cerns, but he down­played the threat to agriculture.

“I’m not say­ing we don’t need farm­land … but Clark County is a big coun­ty. There’s a whole lot of space out there,” he said.

He pre­dict­ed “there will come a time on U.S. 60 when you can’t tell where Lexington stops and Winchester starts.”

“We don’t want that,” said Pete Koutoulas, exec­u­tive direc­tor of WinCity Media.

Nevertheless, Sowden said, “That will happen.”

“I think if you con­trol the growth and you do it intel­li­gent­ly, you can grow and every­body can pros­per,” Yates said. But that means local gov­ern­ments must work bet­ter togeth­er, “and the only way that’s going to hap­pen is you’re going to have to elect the right peo­ple,” he said.

2026 is a local elec­tion year, and there are many can­di­dates for open seats on the Clark County Fiscal Court and the Winchester Board of Commissioners. There will also be an elec­tion for the Clark County Board of Education.

“I think there’s more peo­ple tak­ing an inter­est in gov­ern­ment, and that’s what we need,” Yates said.

Education and training

Skilled work­force devel­op­ment was a major focus of the discussion. 

Reed men­tioned that the build­ing where the cham­ber mem­bers were meet­ing would soon become a work­force train­ing center.

“BCTC stepped up and made a huge com­mit­ment by buy­ing this build­ing from Amazon,” she said. 

Manley said the com­mu­ni­ty needs skilled work­ers in the trades, health care and oth­er areas: weld­ing, nurs­ing, robot­ics, soft­ware skills. And dual-cred­it cours­es, includ­ing those between the pub­lic high school and the com­mu­ni­ty col­lege, play a big role.

Superintendent Dustin Howard said the school dis­trict has more than 600 stu­dents tak­ing dual-cred­it cours­es, and sev­er­al will have enough to grad­u­ate from high school with associate’s degrees. 

George Rogers Clark High School is now ranked among the top 30 high schools in the state, Howard said. The dis­trict has made sig­nif­i­cant progress in its grad­u­a­tion rate and in mak­ing sure its stu­dents are col­lege-and-career ready.

Howard empha­sized not only sec­ondary and post-sec­ondary learn­ing, but also ear­ly child­hood education. 

That is cru­cial for par­ents as well as kids, he explained, because par­ents can’t go to work if they can’t afford day care or pre-school.

He also made a big announcement.

“What we want to unveil this next year is pre‑K for all, right here in Clark County,” Howard said, to loud applause. Pre-kinder­garten bet­ter pre­pares young kids for kinder­garten and ele­men­tary school.

“Developmentally, they’re a sponge,” Howard said, describ­ing 3- and 4‑year-olds. 

He added: “When you only have 54 per­cent of your kids come into kinder­garten who are ready … we have failed them before they have walked in the door. We’ve got to do better.”

City-county coöperation

One of the ques­tions on the minds of audi­ence mem­bers had to do with merged gov­ern­ment services.

Yates, point­ing out that the price of a fire truck has in recent years soared from about $650,000 to more than $1 mil­lion, said local gov­ern­ments could bet­ter serve Winchester and Clark County, and save mon­ey in the long run, by com­bin­ing their fire depart­ments. Fire sta­tions could be more strate­gi­cal­ly placed around the coun­ty, the com­mu­ni­ty would have less unplanned over­time, and there would be bet­ter employ­ee retention.

“Why not have a merged fire depart­ment?” Reed asked. “Why not have the road depart­ments and pub­lic works work together?”

“I’m a great believ­er that we need coöper­a­tion,” the may­or said, but the ques­tion that always comes up in dis­cus­sions between city and coun­ty gov­ern­ments is “Who’s going to be in charge?”

“That is not what this com­mu­ni­ty is about,” she said.

“You’ve got to keep the pol­i­tics out of these things,” Yates agreed.

Yates also brought up the coun­ty government’s dire finan­cial situation.

“What has hap­pened in the short time I’ve been here, on the coun­ty side, is they’ve not increased tax­es — hard­ly at all,” he said. And, he added, “they have spent maybe too much. At the same time, the cost of every­thing has gone up. So it’s a per­fect storm.”

Cora Heffner, a mem­ber of the audi­ence, said local tax­es should be raised.

“I don’t have a big prob­lem with rais­ing the tax­es as long as the mon­ey is not wast­ed,” Yates said.

Opioid problem

One prob­lem that puts a great deal of stress on pub­lic ser­vices is opi­ate and opi­oid drug addic­tion. And it is a seri­ous issue for employ­ment, Manley said.

“I want to see more busi­ness­es employ peo­ple in recov­ery,” he said. “I want to see peo­ple get sus­tain­able jobs so that they can have a long-last­ing recovery.”

The “best mod­el,” Manley said, is DV8 Kitchen in Lexington, a restau­rant that part­ners with non­prof­its to pro­vide sec­ond-chance employ­ment for recov­er­ing drug addicts. 

“I’d like to see some­thing like that here,” he said.

Manley also praised Clark County’s non­prof­it sec­tor and talked about the impor­tant role they play in improv­ing qual­i­ty of life in the community.

“Winchester is about the most giv­ing com­mu­ni­ty that I have ever seen in this area,” he said. “Non-prof­its are need­ed so, so much.”

Great things to come

Reed, who is retired from a career in pub­lic edu­ca­tion, end­ed the dis­cus­sion by recall­ing some­thing that her men­tor, the late Gov. Martha Layne Collins, used to tell her. 

There are three things, Collins said, that attract peo­ple to a com­mu­ni­ty: a vibrant down­town, a great school sys­tem, and great health care. And, Reed said, “We have that going for us in this com­mu­ni­ty. We have that now, so let’s build on it.”

She men­tioned that the city has a new strate­gic plan that will come out, prob­a­bly in March or April, that will help guide its progress.

“We are on the verge of some great things in this com­mu­ni­ty. So I’m ask­ing us again to trust each oth­er, to work togeth­er, to work as a com­mu­ni­ty to move our eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment efforts, and our edu­ca­tion­al efforts, our hos­pi­tals, our schools, and every­thing for­ward – because Winchester is a great place to call home,” she said.