19. Rural Counties and Building Capacity for Resiliency with Greg Puckett
Michelle Rathman: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Rural Impact, a podcast that works hard to connect the dots between policy and rural everything. I'm Michelle Rathman, and we have got a full tank of gas for this episode today. So again, thanks so much for being here. I cannot wait to tell you who we've got with us today, but first I have a few items that I really need to share with you.
Now, to start, I want to acknowledge our new partner, WIPFLI, and if you don't know their name, I get it, but if you've got a rural hospital in your community, it's likely the consultants on their nationwide team have worked behind the scenes to provide solutions that help it achieve financial stability, compliance, and digital evolution.
If you're a rural health leader, I invite you to check out the WIPFLI Rural Solutions Conference in Nashville, Tennessee on April 9th and 10th. I will be there and we will be recording a panel discussion with three really dynamic rural hospital CEOs. Each of them will share how they've overcome the complex challenges that they have to navigate every day.
And if you'll stay with us to the end of this episode to learn more about it, just do that. Or you can head over to WIPFLI.Com for details on how to register for that event. I'm excited to be there with them.
Okay. Now the next item I want to share with you, again, big news in case you haven't heard about it or reserved your spot is that we here at The Rural Impact are really pumped about an event that we're hosting on February 29th, which is, of course, a bonus day for all of us this year.
And so we're inviting all you rural community leaders, especially if you're in a county or a city position. But again, no matter what your sector that you represent, please join us for what promises to be an hour you won't soon forget, and dare I say, regret. Because we've got the authors of 100 percent Community, Dominic Capello, and Dr. Catherine Ortega Courtney, and they're joining me for a power hour, which is really a master class.
And you're going to hear how their groundbreaking, data driven, state government supported, very important framework, is helping to make meaningful strides in closing disparity gaps at the county level.
This is happening all over New Mexico, so we can learn something from this. It's going to be an outstanding conversation, so please do what you do best, multitask. Head over to theruralimpact. com to save your complimentary seat, no strings attached whatsoever. And stay till the end for the goods, because after that session is over, we're going to be sending you some things that I think you'll be able to use and it's value added.
Okay, now, with that said, let's get into today's discussion. In case you didn't know, over 70 percent of the nation's 3,069 counties are rural. And in each of these places, there are county governments made up of individuals charged with the heavy and awesome responsibilities of ensuring their residents have safe roads and bridges, broadband, clean water, of course, housing, safe housing, and a host of other essential services that, of all those counties, I just share with you 62 million people who call rural home rely on to survive and to thrive.
Anyone serving in county government today will tell you and I've talked to many of them. Not everyone, of course, but many of them will tell you if you're not at the table of policy discussions, you're not only on the menu, but potentially your community is on the chopping block for funding. So, if you've listened to the 3 previous episodes in this series, you may recall something that Senator Bill Soules, who, of course, is the author of The Sausage Factory.
He shared with us that how important it is that county commissioners become really engaged with their state lawmakers. I think it's just really interesting how all those dots connect. And what he shared with us is that it's not just important to tell them what you need, which of course is essential to do.
But more importantly, he talks about how stories demonstrate the impact that federal and state funding has on the lives of families and children, both when resources make their way to your rural county, and of course, when they don't. And we are at a critical time right now to make sure important federal funding trinkles down into communities.
So, I want you to be aware of that when appropriations don't make it to things like that are in the farm bill, like food security, they get stalled. This has a real impact on rural communities and they are quite adverse.
For this conversation, I reached out to who else, but the National Association of counties or NACo, as they're called, they are an organization that supports federal policies and programs that equip county governments with the resources and the flexibility, very important, needed to effectively serve their residents. And then they connected me with this great guy. His name is Mr. Greg Puckett and he is the immediate past president of NACO's Rural Action Caucus. And he serves on the Mercer County, West Virginia Board of Commissioners.
And he's done that since 2014. He tells me that rural is in his veins and you can feel his passion during this conversation. You know, I say it often. And I think it's worth repeating these are not light subjects. That's not what we're here for. We're talking about these things because they're so important for rural communities in 2024 and beyond to thrive.
But what I can promise you is that if you don't find my conversation with Greg enlightening, please check with the maitre d for a refund on the way out the door. I had to throw that in, but, you know, levity aside, I invite you to tune out the noise. There's a plenty of it out there. And listen to my conversation with Commissioner Greg Puckett.
Are you ready? Let's go.
Michelle Rathman: Greg Puckett, County Commissioner in Mercer County, West Virginia. Welcome to the Rural Impact. We're so glad to have you here for this conversation today. Welcome.
Greg Puckett: Thank you so much. Looking forward to it. It's going to be great.
Michelle Rathman: Wonderful. Okay. So I teed this up a little bit because as you all know, our listeners, and for those of you who have heard this series, we just wrapped up our 'Arriving at Thriving Series'.
And we've been talking about the important role that local and state government have in ensuring that our rural stakeholders have the resources that they need to both survive and thrive. And, I think what's really interesting is Greg is coming at it from a county perspective. We've heard from people who are working with counties.
We've heard from the state legislator. We've heard from a global perspective person and now at the end of the day, I've been excited to have this conversation because Greg, as you and I talked offline, I work with a lot of hospitals. They need their county support. They need their county commissioners to understand the value that local health care brings and so forth.
And so you've got quite a bit of experience in this. Before we get started, just share with our listeners a little bit about your county, where you're from, and what makes your passion for rural so strong.
Greg Puckett: Oh, thanks. You know, it's, it's exciting to be with you today because anytime we have a chance to talk rural, that's where it hits home with me. I live in Southern West Virginia, little town called Princeton in Mercer County. We've got about 57,000 people. We're geographically Central Eastern United States to 60 percent of the United States population within a 12 hour drive.
So we can literally be just about anywhere. And likewise, people can get to us. And so it's a good space to live. It's the hills and hollows. We are coal supporting communities. So if anybody knows about the coal fields of Appalachia, we are right next door and doing a lot of the support services for those. We've seen a lot of ups and downs over the years.
We've seen, coal was our business for many, many, many years in terms of, the economy and in Appalachian, in the region I'm in. But we've also seen the heartache and heartbreak from the substance use issues since the late 90s and early 2000s. And, we were at ground zero for a lot of that.
And so, we still are dealing with it. I always tell people, we don't have a drug problem in West Virginia. We have an addiction problem. We've got to stop looking at the drugs and we got to stop looking at that and start really holistically, looking at the physical mental wellbeing of the people.
And I think once we do that. You got a chance to do much better and, thankfully we're on the uptick. We're on a growth county. Tourism is on the rise. Businesses are coming into West Virginia and record numbers now, and I think collectively West Virginia is starting to be on the map. And, I'm very happy to be at the opportunity to put those pieces together and in a challenging environment, but we're doing fairly well so far.
Michelle Rathman: That's good to hear, because we talk a lot about capacity building and you talk about the addiction challenge that you have and that so many rural communities across this country concur. I mean, they know it's still, it's definitely still a thing. And we talk a lot about mental health.
And being, a part of this equation that could really help to propel communities out of that place and into prosperity, if you will. One of the things that I wanted to talk to you about, because, every one of us in any industry, we have those our membership to an organization that supports our work. And I reached out to NACO, which is the National Association of Counties, and obviously at the top of my head, we'll have it in the show notes. How many counties are there across? I'm going to quiz you, Greg, across this country. But at the end of the day, so many of those counties are rural and they are, they need to be resourced in a different way. So let's talk a little bit about NACO.
And then I understand that you are formerly past head of the Rural Action Caucus.
Greg Puckett: That is correct.
Michelle Rathman: And let's talk about some of the work in the Rural Action Caucus, because I don't think that that's like, you know, coffee table conversation that people are having today.
Greg Puckett: You know, it's not, but it's also one of the most powerful things because NACO's got 3,069 counties that they represent across the United States, and 60 percent of them are rural. And be it a parish, a borough or a county, be it a supervisor or commissioner or whatever we call ourselves, we've got a lot of work to do.
And, a lot of us live in a space that needs the support of people. And NACO's been that. I'm on the board of directors currently, multiple committees. I mean, you can't tell you the things that I've learned just because I'm involved so heavily with NACO. But currently a vice chair with the Rural Action Caucus and previous chair for the last two and a half years.
And, it's funny because what I see with NACO is the fact that it provides the resources that all counties should have. Be it opioids, be it arts, culture, be it, understanding the Farm Bill. The things that are really essential to the inner workings of counties across the United States.
That's what NACO provides. And, the other thing that I think is so valuable, when I was chair I always told people and it's funny because I've got a Subaru and I love to drive, and it's a couple of years old, it's already got 110, 000 miles on it, because I like to see the middle. So,
Michelle Rathman: Are you one of those commercials?
Greg Puckett: I'm one of those commercials, yeah.
So, I, it's like, I promise the people in NACO that, I wanted to go see the counties that are between the destinations. And so we would have a conference somewhere. We'd have to go to San Diego or Denver. You know, we'd go to different areas. And I would always drive because I think it's important to understand the context of the people that we represent.
And that was for me the best part because as I'm traveling through, if I'm in the Midwest, if I'm through Kansas or all the way down and through like Alabama or somewhere, the pockets of rural are deep and they're rooted and they're so culturally relevant to the foundation of what we see in this country.
And, I think we need to get back to understanding more of that, especially in rural, because the things that are in West Virginia that are important. Are the same things that are in rural Texas, the same things that, you know, rural New England, I mean,
Michelle Rathman: Rural Washington, rural Oregon,
Greg Puckett: Wherever. Stevens County, Washington's, that's a great example.
It's the Eastern part of Washington. But they've got transportation issues. They've got substance use issues. They've got it's the same thing. It's the same issues. The magnitude is different, but the things that NACO provides is that base on how to deal with all of those collectively.
Michelle Rathman: Okay, so you, this is a perfect segue, Greg, because I really appreciate hearing that there anyone who's listened to me on any format anytime I speak, I really believe that when I'm working with a rural hospital, it's imperative that I understand as much as I can about the rural community.
And part of that is the understand the county, the county makeup, the capacity that the county has and at the same time, here we are at the door of the legislative conferences for our collective industries. And so that means that it's important for us then to go to D.C. If we were lucky enough that they're in session to speak with Congress and talk to them about the things that you're seeing on the ground.
And February, I'm not exactly sure the date. This is going to drop, but I'll just say February 10th is the start of NACO’s conference. And like other organizations, you all must have some significant legislative priorities. So could you talk to us a bit about what those priorities are? Obviously, with respect to rural and go down the list of the things that you're really wanting are those that you speak to.
I was mentioning, Bill Soules says, you got to work with your counties. So, let's just say you're going to your officials in D.C., what should we be telling them about? What counties really need their attention on right now? And I promised you, it's probably not the things that you're hearing on mainstream media.
Greg Puckett: No, you're right. And I think that's the best part about being a county official. People ask me all the time if I would ever run for another political office, and I have no desire because I love being a commissioner. Because it gives you the opportunity to understand what the grass roots level stuff is going on, and then be able to advocate at the state and federal level.
And I was just in D.C., actually last week, and met with my representatives in the Senate, Senator Capito and also Senator Manchin. They're very heavily involved in understanding what the issues are in regards to public the physical health and mental health and well-being of the communities that we see.
And so to be able to be with them and, and have those relationships with the staff, most people don't understand that either. You know, you, the relationships come from many times because they're not in session. They come from the staffers. And so being able to present those and be able to write the legislation that goes forward, it's extremely important.
And, with NACO, we're talking about the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill was looked to be reauthorized last year. It got put back again. Now we're looking at September 24. And, you're talking about SNAP benefits, we're talking about things that people, they hear Farm Bill and they think tractors and they think, and those are important, but let's look at the other pieces.
I mean, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, many of the people don't understand that that is fit within the Farm Bill. All USDA programs fit within the Farm Bill. Any of the infrastructure and the water and the sewer and the other pieces like that and the advocacy through those issues.
They all have to be reauthorized, and they all have a central role to play. So, you have to be very broad. You've got to be understanding that, you've got to, as a county official, you've got to be able to tell multiple stories. But you also have to be able to understand that there's specific things, even in looking at infrastructure, water, sewer, broadband, if we don't have connectivity to the modern world, we cannot operate now.
So, legislative priorities, national priorities take direct importance. And again, I guess I would be considered a NACO homer on this one, because the things that I learn from the organization guide my work locally, but it also guides it globally.
Michelle Rathman: So I want to reverse the question. I think about this and all of us lead busy lives, you talk to most people and say, how is it going? And that they use that B word busy, busy, busy. And so it can feel daunting. Especially with the amount of information that is being fed to us to really focus in and understand what an individual citizen, your constituents, how do you talk to them about the level of importance for at least having a good base understanding of what's in the Farm Bill.
I'm really want to understand how to break that code because it's not just a postcard. It's not just about when it's time for an election or whatnot. How do we get our, in your estimation, our rural county citizens to be more maybe more curious, acces, more information so that they can make more informed decisions?
Michelle Rathman: That's, I think, a reasonable ask of folks.
Greg Puckett: It is, but, it's the hardest thing is because people look at things of what's impacting their lives at the moment. And we've gotten into the society where we only look at things from a three-foot lens. And so we don't understand the priorities of the things that happen at the federal level and how that trickle down comes and impacts communities locally, if we don't have access to water and sewer and things like that, you can't grow.
I mean, your community will, will wither and die. If we can't have, broadband access, no company is willing to come to an area that doesn't have the accessibility to connect them with the rest of the world. So, to try to explain that to somebody and say, This is why this is important.
Transportation, infrastructure, it's not a sexy sell because it's not giving you that direct feedback, but it's the long-term plans that say, look, what we have to do now sets us up for the next 10, 15, 20 years. And so you have those conversations and, people are like, we want jobs now. We want this restaurant to come to town.
We want this. And those are all great. Those don't impact the bottom line in generations to come. And, we've seen in West Virginia, for decades, we've seen that mass exodus of people that, we train them, we grow them up, and we educate them and we send them out into the world and they go somewhere else and they take their expertise and they don't come home.
Well, we've got to put these things into place. And I think, working through the Farm Bill and working through things that understand, the, the BEAD program with broadband infrastructure. I mean, all of these things that we have conversations on every day.
Michelle Rathman: There's gotta be an incentive. There's gotta be something there,
Greg Puckett: And you gotta have, you gotta have little wins, right?
So you gotta have, you gotta have the little things that actually show the progress, because I'll be honest, being an elected official in today's world is not an easy thing. And if you don't show immediate results, and you're not Facebook worthy, and you're not on there, getting clicks, and all the things that people want immediately, then you're not any good to them.
And a lot of the things, unfortunately, by the way that the society is set up, and the way that legislature works, and all the things on Capitol Hill. These are things that happen over generations, things that we're working on back in, the Obama administration and beyond. We're still putting things together to put those forward now.
And so, I think that's what people have to understand. It doesn't move quickly.
Michelle Rathman: Yes, it's so complicated and it's a lot easier to go down another path to make it plausible. I want to turn a little bit to health care because I know that that is you know, you and I again, we talked offline about the importance of having access to quality health care in rural communities, and we know and anyone who doesn't know this, I'm sorry.
It's now, you know, and it's really important to pay attention because nobody wants to stay. I mean, people live in rural because they want to be in rural. People are drawn to rural. We've seen this migration into rural from more suburban and urban places through the pandemic. And you just mentioned tourism as well.
And you need health care access in communities and you've seen your fair share of hospital closures in your state. I think you mentioned something maybe even in your county during the pandemic. So how important is it for a county leaders to really connect with their health care leaders and those other kind of resources to make sure that not only they, it's not good enough to just barely get by our
Greg Puckett: No.
Michelle Rathman: health infrastructure needs to thrive. So let's talk a little bit about that for a moment.
Greg Puckett: Well, healthy communities, it can be very broad, in your definition. I look at healthy communities in, in terms of infrastructure and environmental. So, when I go downtown, I like murals on walls. I like to have a comfortable environment in which to exist, and then we can do all kinds of amazing things when your community feels good.
If it feels good, it's gonna act good. If it acts good, it's gonna be good. And so, there's a lot of things there that, kind of fit into the process. We did see a hospital close in my community. We had two hospitals, one Princeton Community, another one Bluefield Regional Medical. And because that they were owned independently they could not survive.
We just did not have the amount of infrastructure. We didn't have the doctors, we didn't have the nurses. There was things that we didn't have. So, while it was unfortunate. They were able to keep an emergency facility open at the other one in Bluefield, and then Princeton actually changed and became part of the West Virginia Healthcare System. And then they got bought out, and so WVU Medicine is now operational. And I think that's where you're starting to see the transition of, how you're dealing with public health.
In my community alone, we talked about the addiction stuff. I had 37 million pills over a 10 year period hit my community. And, now we're not even dealing with the pills. Now we've switched over to heroin, the fentanyl issues and other things. And if you don't have direct care resources locally in which to deal with a lot of these issues, if you don't have ambulance service, if you don't have these things, then you've got a dying community.
And so, thankfully we're in a place where now we're starting to see everybody come together and we're dealing with the addiction side and we're dealing with public health and also the mental health. You know, we advocated for 988 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. I mean, that was something that we pushed and we got passed in our state to get funded.
So people have those resources locally, but even in our, with the county government, you mentioned about being involved in the healthcare field, being an elected official. We now have a social worker in our law enforcement agency that deals with family issues when somebody is actually coming in, they're incarcerated, we, we deal with them on a one-on-one case basis and, getting them help and services they need and it's, and it's revolutionizing the system.
And thankfully, again, kind of wrapping back with NACO, the Stepping Up Initiative, really looking at this and diversion to incarceration, health care, mental health, all of these services, putting together in a package to make your community stronger. And I think that's what we're starting to see.
And, hopefully more rural communities are going to be able to do that as time goes on.
Michelle Rathman: And I think, and you're making me, my head spin here with questions because I think another important thing here is that we know that there are workforce shortages in every industry. I mean, really in healthcare, but I'm sure county is no exception. And I think about the fact that when bipartisan legislation passes and finally the money gets put out for distribution to the states and then the states to the counties.
What's really imperative is to ensure that there is capacity for implementation. And so I wonder if you could touch on that just a little bit to talk about where you see, I mean, you're speaking just for your one own county, but, several other counties, where do you see our rural counties in terms of their ability to continually build capacity?
Have you just added a social worker? That's a, that's a pretty big piece of capacity building right there. But what are some of the challenges and some of the opportunities you see to build capacity at the county level? So that when these resources do come down the pike, if you will you, you're ready.
You're ready to go versus sitting on it and saying, we don't have the capacity to implement the requirements of this grant funding or what have you.
Greg Puckett: Well, and I think that goes back to, what we have at the county level. I mean, a lot of rural counties. Thankfully, we do have a grant writer. We do have a couple of other things. We work with our local nonprofits. I'm the director of one, actually and we bring a lot of resources into the area.
But a lot of rural counties, the smaller you go, they don't have the same capacity. They don't have the people to run the grant, to, to write for the grants, much less run the grants. And so there is money, millions of dollars that are left on the table each year because smaller counties don't have that capacity.
And I think that's where counties need to work together. We can start working across borders and across state lines. I live on the state border with Virginia and I can go, if you look culturally where I'm located, I relate more with the counties in southwestern Virginia, over through Tennessee, Kentucky, down into North Carolina, I relate a lot more of them in the Appalachian culture.
And so we've got to be able to work together across those lines and those geographic boundaries to really focus on what's the most important. And I think there needs to be grant opportunities to do that, but we can work together to make it happen universally with all of us. You mentioned about different bills.
I mean, there's a lot of things even in Congress right now. There's bipartisan efforts in looking at child care. Child care is a huge barrier. You know, we've got a working population that in many ways, if you don't have an uptick in the economy that can really support a sustainable wage, you can't afford to go to work to pay for the child care.
So you're actually in many ways, I hate to say it, many people feel that they're better off not working to get the subsidy for the child care. Whereas if they go to work, they're going to pay back more and
Michelle Rathman: simple math, isn't it?
Greg Puckett: It is it's simple math and then and they know that. So how do you build a sustainable workforce in a rural environment when the opportunities are less, the childcare rates and everything else is higher,
Michelle Rathman: hmm.
Greg Puckett: There's a bipartisan things right now.
The economic, the Rural Partnership and Prosperity Act, we're looking to support that so that we can get everybody again on an even playing field. And, having dealt with grants and of course, county government too. I think one of the things that we need to understand about rural is if you want numbers, then fine, give a grant to a big community and you're going to get numbers.
But if you really want impact, give the money to the rural counties, because the same amount of money or even less money is going to be much more impactful. And you're going to see a much greater society come from those individual counties. It's always been that way. It will always be that way. So we've just got to figure out a way to get that cell down to rural a lot more.
Michelle Rathman: hmm. Greg, I want to touch on another subject because I am seeing more and more about this and rural has a housing issue as well, a significant housing challenge and we're seeing more teen, unhoused children, unhoused teens, and it just, we tell people it looks very different. So talk to us about any programs that you're aware of, that you're working on to address this.
And this is not a small feat. I mean, this we have a significant challenge and it's very complex because I don't think it's what all of us thought was going to happen. It's not just because there's a shortage of dwellings, if you will, but people are just being totally priced out of their communities as well.
Greg Puckett: So yes we've seen that in the, sort of the shift in my county. So we've got a lot of, we're still old school. Let me give a lay, lay of the land for us. My county is like many counties in West Virginia. We don't have zoning. We don't have property maintenance. We don't have things that hold people accountable at the local level, so we've got a lot of dilapidated properties and a lot of land that's really truly unusable because we've had generations of poverty and everything else that's that's allowed that to happen.
And when you have no accountability, you don't have the constant upkeep, and so, the lack of housing in my community comes from the lack of the ability to control quality, affordable housing. So that's a major issue. If you don't, if you don't have that investment, then people are always going to look elsewhere or they feel that they have less of a value than they actually do.
We also had people coming in and buying up trailer parks and in buying the trailer parks, they would price them out. And so, it went from a lot fee of a hundred dollars a month to $500 a month. And with no warning, and now we're trying to put together a litigation to go after the, these people that are coming in and seeing the big bucks well, if you don't like it, you can pick your trailer up and move.
But where? Who's going to be able to do that? So, and they use that because then the land becomes more valuable. That's the thing about West Virginia is we, during COVID, people started migrating out of larger municipalities to rural. So land values skyrocketed. And that happens a lot.
People want to get away from the rat race. They want to do that. So they're moving out and the price of the land goes up, shoving people who are in those communities for generations out. And so housing is a major problem, but so is the shift of, the push to get people out of rural.
And the last thing, if you're looking at farms, we heard a lot about this, about, what is a farm these days? What is the definition? Everybody has that image of what a farm is. The solar farms now are popping up everywhere, diversification to the energy issues that we have, right? The shift from coal to something else. Well, the usable land and the things with windmill and with solar and everything else, now there's a lot of issues saying, well, we can't cultivate the lands that we have because the land is being used for a different purpose.
So there's all these different shifts that are happening, and I think the next 10 years are going to be really, sort of, what's going to see for the next 50. We saw that during COVID, we learned a lot, but in many ways, it was great because it taught us to be able to be different in a very quick amount of time.
But also, it set the stage for the movement's going to go faster, so the next 10 will set the next 50.
Michelle Rathman: It's like, you're in my head, Greg, because I ask all the time, what are we learn a lot from COVID? As a county official, I'm very curious, what have you learned? And what has it now prepared you to do when the next pandemic comes? Because I know there will be one. We may not be, but somebody has to be prepared to do it.
Greg Puckett: Yeah have your facts straight up front.
Michelle Rathman: Wouldn't that be nice.
Greg Puckett: that would be nice.
Michelle Rathman: Wait, let me write this down. Have facts straight up front. Okay. Got it.
Greg Puckett: And, and don't deviate from facts. Opinions are not facts that let's just, that needs to be clear that opinions are not facts and when you have a direction, don't deviate because something gets loud or gets hard. Stick with what, you know, and what we've, been able to work through that system.
I think that's for me, that's the number one, looking at it from a public health lens, and I'm always a public health advocate. That's just, I will always say that. I was one of the ones that was on the outside, saying, look, if a mask works, a slight amount, then fine, let's do that.
If social distancing works, let's do that. But there were facts and things and the goal line kept changing, right? Be able to understand that you're doing it for the right reasons. It may not always be understood, but keep doing it for the right reasons, and don't deviate from what you know. I learned a lot about that.
Michelle Rathman: I would say so many of the county officials that I have met the number one thing they have to have. I don't care how many letters are after your name or I mean, I, I honor all of your service, but it's courage, and that is true. All right in the few minutes that we have I want you to sell all those out there who said, you know, I've thought about running for county or city office in my rural community.
What advice do you have for them? What, what about this? You've been doing this a long time. You're passionate. What advice do you have for people who want to get started? What would be important for them to know?
Greg Puckett: So first thing is something that is probably the oxymoron for everybody that thinks about is being an honest political leader. Be transparent. There's no reason why you can't be. I mean, everything that you do is supposed to be transparent. Everything is supposed to be out in the open and completely, allowing the public to see the process.
And as long as you have that, then the public will have additional trust. The trust erodes when you get caught in or backdoor meetings or the perception of whatever. Be able to be transparent. The second thing would be have tough skin. And know that 50 percent of the people hate you when you wake up in the morning.
And that's hard. When we were doing a lot of policy work, and of course, there's a lot of things that still need to change in my community. I mean, I would literally, in a small rural community, I would step out of the door and I would do an environmental scan to see who's there. You've got to look around.
You've got to know your environment. And you've got to know where your friends are. And then you've got to know how to work through a system. And the
Michelle Rathman: It’s really actually quite daunting to hear you say. I mean, it's so obviously realistic. And at the same time, we need whether, whether we agree or not, we have to have strong leaders in place in every aspect of our local governments, because that's how things get done, right? That's how schools are funded at the end of the day.
The resources that come back to your community, that's how all of this happens. None of the stuff grows on trees and there's no fairies running around saying, I think you need clean water and we need to fix your roads and your bridges. All right, so the last question I have for you is just give us a kind of a broad brushstroke of what your what is the best opportunity look like for rural counties today?
I mean, we have a lot of challenges. In front of us, but if you could put your finger on something where you see, there's a lot of promise and opportunity for rural counties today, what would that be?
Greg Puckett: You're the best storytellers in the world. So you need to use it. You really are. And, what you see in your grocery store and, when you talk to your constituents, you, you hear it every day, whether it be at a leash law ordinance or, whatever it happens to be, you're gonna, you're gonna hear it from the local constituents.
So be able to converse and tell that story. And I think being a county official and being able to learn. from every single process. And again, learn from those who have done it before you and those who will continue to do it with you. And organizations like NACO that kind of bring it all together, give you the tools and the techniques to make it well worth your effort.
I have no desire to do anything other than being a county official because it's just the most rewarding thing. And I think most people given the opportunity would say the same.
Michelle Rathman: Wow, it's so great to have you here. I could you're right. You're a great storyteller. Thanks for representing that, the county side of the of this equation. It's so incredibly important. If our communities are going to thrive, it requires the involvement of every single county official. And so, you representing them, Greg, you've done a great service.
To the organization by doing so again, we just want to remind everybody that we bring you these conversations, because we believe it's important to connect the dots between policy and rural everything. And you've heard me say it many times over the quality of life, those roads are paved by policy.
So get involved with your county go to their meetings. You know, just listen and learn. I think it's going to it's really enlightening. I become enlightened just be, being a part of my own city council as well. Again, we are excited that you joined us for another episode of The Rural Impact.
Don't you go on believing that we're not going to have another one coming up soon because we have got some really remarkable episodes coming up. We've just closed off our Arriving at Thriving series and so we welcome you to come back anytime. Subscribe. Like, Share. We do appreciate when you do that.
I also just want to thank our team, Brea Corsaro, our associate producer, Sarah Staub, who does all the great graphics and production, and to Jonah Mancino for the wonderful original music that he's produced for this podcast. Again, I'm Michele Rathman, and we're going to see you on a new episode of The Rural Impact.
