The Boerne incubator program – known as Das Greenhaus – was granted $500,000 in funding from the Kendall County Commissioner’s Court late last month in a split vote, and the money was handed down with some objection from commissioners.
The incubator program is set to foster small, entrepreneurial business startups to grow smaller startup businesses in the area, creating jobs and loyal, community-focused companies, information stated. The Boerne Kendall County Economic Development Corporation and the Boerne Kendall County Angel Network are working to start a nonprofit incubator to help businesses grow in their early days. Several of the community leaders working to start the new nonprofit initially requested $750,000 from the commissioners’ American Rescue Plan Act funds.
The ARPA was signed by President Joe Biden last March, and the county is set to receive just over $9 million spread out over three years.
County Judge Darrel Lux motioned to approve the $500,000 funding from the county’s American Rescue Plan Act coffers, and Precinct 2 Commissioner Richard Elkins seconded the motion. But Precinct 1 Commissioner Christina Bergmann expressed some trepidation.
“First, I’d like to say I support your project, and I have, in fact, in April of 2020 Dr. Macaluso and I talked about bringing the Angel Network here,” Bergmann said. “I supported him and was looking forward to that coming. I personally cannot support giving $500,000 to this organization and to the city of Boerne to renovate one of their buildings. I’ve had sleepless nights figuring out what to do with all these funds that we have. And in my research, we can buy EMS units. We can by sheriff’s departments units. We can build our own EMS facility, and we can improve things that benefit in my opinion the entirety of Kendall County.”
Bergmann said she considered if she would support this funding if it were coming out of the county’s general fund, and she said she wouldn’t’ feel comfortable using taxpayers’ money to fund the organization.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Richard Chapman said the funding for Das Greenhaus should be from private sources, saying using these funds could hamper the county’s ability to seek a bond in the future.
“To me, this project is not about the merits of the Das Greenhaus,” Chapman said. “This is not about the merits of the EDC (economic development corporation). This is not about the merits of working with the city on a project. This is about the future. While I’m being told this is good for our future, I really have no proof of that. What I do know is we have current needs such as office space, vehicle parking, a brush grinder, we need to upgrade our parks system. To invest $500,000 into a building we neither own nor have the use of, in my opinion, would not be fiscally responsible.”
Precinct 2 Commissioner Richard Elkins said the project has been coming to fruition since the Greater Boerne Chamber of Commerce was started. He reminded the audience that the residents of Kendall County will be going to vote on a $165 million Boerne Independent School District bond issuance in May. He said the Das Greenhaus project is “100 percent education and hopes and dreams.”
Elkins said if it was up to him, whatever the cost to get the incubator program up and running might be, he would get on his knee and beg the commissioners to fund it. He said the children coming out of this county are going to continue to accelerate, and parents are going to continue to send these “bright” children to other cities and counties due to the lack of high-paying jobs or opportunities in the county.
“Right now, if you walk down Main Street, you’ve got incubators all over Main Street,” Elkins said, adding, “99.9-something percent of all business in America is less than five people. Those are all incubators. They’re the ones that I got my first job from. Someday, if I want to help out somebody, it might be my last job. My point is, it’s time for us to wake up and be a commissioners court for the whole county, and I think this is vital and shows that dedication to do it.”
Precinct 4 Commissioner Don Durden thanked the Kendall County Economic Development Corporation for getting the incubator project started, noting the several businesses the organization has brought in. He recalled in the beginning, the corporation was bringing big-box stores that concerned residents. Durden said the corporation listened to these concerns and has focused on bringing community-based businesses.
Durden supported the motion, saying the project would help provide tax revenue for the county and city and would provide employment in the county especially for young children, “backing off the brain drain we’ve been having here.”
Durden expressed a couple of concerns he wanted to see addressed. He wanted to ensure the county would make back its investment should the city of Boerne opt to sell the former public works building in the future. The lease agreement between Boerne and Das Greenhaus to use the former public works building essentially rent-free requires the incubator nonprofit organization to make $500,000 worth of improvements to the aging building within 24 months of the effective date of the lease agreement, or the same amount the commissioners put up for the organization.
“It’s easier to find reasons not to do something,” Lux said in support of the incubator before calling for a vote. “It’s a little more difficult and maybe a little more bold, and maybe you just take some more criticism to actually go forward and do something. I mean, I think of some projects that you know I’ve been hung up, not beaten – maybe verbally beaten – that we move forward with that in my opinion and the majority of the members of the court supported that we move forward to make this community a better place. I was proud to make the motion. I was glad to hear the discussion.”
The motion passed 3-2, with Bergmann and Chapman voicing the two nays. BKCEDC President and CEO Amy Story said there are hopes renovation on the Das Greenhaus building will begin this summer, but the origination is still working to find private funding sources.
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