County officials discuss economic impact from pandemic

COUNTY – The pandemic has not yet caused any significant local economic development casualties, according to professionals in Kingman. Manager Bennett Bratley said he’s not aware of any impactful closures or layoffs by 65 Kingman Airport Industrial Park tenants who employ 2,500 of people in manufacturing and other jobs.

“I haven’t seen it yet, but obviously it could come depending where this leads in the near future,” Bratley said. “Companies that I have been working with on recent projects that are looking at the Kingman Industrial Park have held off on their site visits right now due to social distancing and not jumping on a flight but they’re still showing interest.”

The emails and phone calls haven’t slowed down for Mohave County Economic Development Director Tami Ursenbach.

“I’m going to say no. In fact things have picked up,” Ursenbach said. “We’re doing business differently but it hasn’t slowed down.”

Ursenbach said she had discussion last week with a company that was interested in locating in either Lake Havasu, Bullhead City or Kingman that is now thinking of all three communities. “I had another company that called me that was looking at maybe bringing part of their company here and now they’re so upset with the state that they live in and the way that they’ve handled the situation that they’re looking to relocate their whole company here,” she said.

Ursenbach and Bratley said economic development activity continues in the corporate world because investment and location decisions in that arena are long term in focus while smaller businesses are more likely to be negatively impacted by an outbreak of a few months or less.

Ursenbach and Bratley said the nation’s economy was growing strong before the outbreak and they expect a strong rebound on the other side of the pandemic. “The economy had been starting to take a strong foothold and I believe that’s going to continue coming out of this,” Bratley said.

Ursenbach shares Bratley’s enthusiasm and optimism.

“Every day that’s what my focus is. Every day. Don’t look at today and don’t get discouraged because this is really short term,” she said. This will not be a recession and within two or three months we’re going to look back and say ‘thank goodness, we got through it and now let’s move forward.’”

• Dave Hawkins