Developer Chet Hitt told the Chickasha City Council that if his purchase of a half-section of undeveloped land at the municipal airport is consummated, he plans to arrange a business recruitment trip to his native California.
Hitt said he has already discussed the proposed trip with Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell and plans to extend invitations to Gov. Kevin Stitt, U.S. Sen. James Lankford, Congressman Tom Cole, and state Senator Lonnie Paxton of Tuttle, who was born in Chickasha.
Local citizens asked to join the trip would include Jim Cowan, president of the Chickasha Economic Development Council; Chickasha Mayor Zach Grayson, City Manager Jim Crosby, and Community Development Director Rachel Bernish; Kayla Hale, president of Chickasha’s University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma; and Ronnie Bogle, director of Canadian Valley Technology Center’s Chickasha campus.
“My plan,” Hit told Southwest Ledger, “is to host a seminar for 300 to 400 California business people and sell them on Chickasha and how we could customize a business site and a workforce specifically for them.”
One reason why California companies might be interested in Chickasha is that construction costs are cheaper in Oklahoma than they are in California, and bureaucratic regulations are not as onerous here as they are there.
Hitt should know. After creating his Town’s End development in Apple Valley, California, he began renovating properties in downtown Chickasha. As an example, he spent at least $1.3 million and more than 18 months overhauling the Savoy Hotel downtown, a 122-year-old building that contains a combined total of almost 15,000 square feet of floor space.
Another reason for attempting to lure California business owners to Oklahoma is a potential workforce.
According to the Public Policy Institute of California, California is likely to face a shortage of workers by 2025. And CalMatters reported that throughout the Golden State, public agencies and private employers have been contending with “an endemic lack of workers of all kinds, from unskilled to highly educated.”