The response from the local community to the pending closures of Tyson and Holiday Resort has been quite clear in recent days, however, what could the response be from those outside of the community further down the road?
KVOE News posed that question to City Commissioner Tyler Curtis following the commission’s most recent meeting Wednesday, during which Curtis offered his thoughts on the closures. Curtis stated, “It is a beautiful week in Emporia, but a tough week,” noting that the announced closures will significantly impact the community for quite some time.
One of those impacts could be recruiting future businesses or employers to the community. Curtis says from an optics standpoint, the narrative of two businesses, while in separate fields, announcing closures only days apart is not a good one and unfortunately, the negative narratives often gain the most attention from outside entities.
Curtis noted in his comments Wednesday that this is not a situation that will be resolved in a matter of days, it is one that will require constant and direct attention for many months. In his mind, Curtis believes the path to a solution has everything to do with “timelines” noting the first and most important step at this time is to “resource” the individuals affected by the closures.
Curtis says the resource stage, which the city is currently in the midst of, will likely continue through the remainder of the calendar year. He says “early” in the new year is when the city should begin looking into and surveying the potential for recruiting new businesses or exploring potential “rehabbing” of the Holiday Resort and Tyson facilities for future use.
The announcement that Tyson’s Emporia plant will be closing as part of a two-phased approach came Monday morning and was followed the next day by the announcement that Holiday Resort would be closing Friday. The Holiday Resort closure has been put on pause after the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS) announced Mission Health, based out of Tampa, Florida, as a temporary manager for the facility in northwest Emporia for at least 30 days if not more, depending on the situation in a month, giving families and residents more needed time to make new living arrangements.
There are several significant questions about the Holiday Resort situation, including why KDADS said Holiday Resort is no longer qualified to receive funding through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development as well as whether residents were given 30 days’ notice — as mandated — before the initial decision to close Friday. Shortly after KVOE’s Talk of Emporia, which featured several state and local representatives, ended Friday, a HUD spokesperson clarified some of the Holiday Resort situations, saying the skilled nursing facility has a mortgage loan through an unspecified commercial lender as well as mortgage insurance through HUD as opposed to funding from the federal agency.
HUD also says the facility owner was in default on the loan “for some time,” prompting “extensive efforts over many months” to bring the loan current but the owner did not make that happen.
During Friday’s Talk of Emporia broadcast, 60th District State Representative Mark Schreiber said the 30-day notice did not happen. He also says Mission Health called off-air during the program to tell him it would be paying all employees affected by the shutdown. He also stated that Mission Health called off-air during the program to tell him it would be paying all employees affected by the shutdown.
