Regional Cooperation: Missouri and Kansas Working Together

Two-state teamwork gets boost
By Tom Bowser
Special to The Kansas City Star

Regional cooperation took a significant step forward last month with the convening of the first Governors’ Summit on Regional Growth.

Held at the Sprint Nextel campus in Overland Park, with the telecom company’s Gary Forsee and the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce as hosts, the summit focused on the economic growth of our two-state community.

As chief executive and president of the area’s largest employer, Forsee used his influence and strong civic commitment to bring Govs. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Matt Blunt of Missouri together with nearly 200 area civic leaders, elected officials and business executives. The focus for the summit, Forsee said, was “net new growth” and economic development initiatives that attract new businesses and jobs to the area from outside the region, rather than back and forth across the state line.

“When we are not careful,” Forsee accurately warned, “this line can pit Kansas against Missouri and downtown against the suburbs.”

Three specific initiatives were discussed: higher education, life sciences and public transit. Though our region has many needs, those three issues were chosen because strategic plans are in place and moving forward. Each requires support from the state level.

-Higher education: the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation’s Blue Ribbon Task Force report.
-Life sciences: the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute’s Roadmap and the chamber’s animal health initiative.
-Public transit: the Mid-America Regional Council’s Smart Moves plan.

At the close of the summit, a letter of “Commitment to Regional Growth” was signed by Sebelius, Blunt, Forsee and me. We agreed to meet again in a year to review progress and announced a chamber task force, with chamber board member Roshann Parris of Parris Communications as chairwoman.

The task force will monitor developments in the key areas and report back to the second summit.

We are indeed one KC — and the Regional Governors’ Summit bodes well for regional cooperation.

Tom Bowser is chairman of the board for the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, and president and chief executive officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City.