Kay Bills has been on a mission, and when she’s on a mission, she only takes yes for an answer.
That’s how, in the past eight months, she’s managed to get the likes of Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell and representatives of U.S. senators to attend meetings that center on the objective she holds dearest: Improving the economic fate of the town of Fairfax, especially now that “Killers of the Flower Moon” is poised to hit movie theaters – and cause an expected flood of tourists in Fairfax, Pawhuska and other locations in Osage County.
Already, tourists are pouring in. As a German documentary filmmaker who stopped by the Osage News in late May said, “Oklahoma is trending.”
On May 24, Bills, the former chair of Osage LLC and longtime promoter of Native American business development, led a meeting of with members of the Osage County Industrial Authority, on which she serves, local banks, the new Osage Nation Community Development Financial Institution (A Place to Borrow Money, aka PBM Lending), representatives of the U.S. Small Business Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, plus several others to drum up support and financing for small businesses that are willing to invest in Fairfax and other communities.
Her plan: To model a lending program on Montana’s Native American Collateral Support Program, which provides collateral to lenders so Native businesses that lack it can borrow money for business and agricultural loans. In Montana, the state provides that collateral in the form of a certificate of deposit that can be held by a bank for five years, and the money is paid back to the state as the borrower makes loan payments and builds equity.
In Montana, seven commercial banks participate in the program, and their risk has proven negligible: 99 percent of the loans have been repaid in full. Even more remarkably – combined with a state-funded grant program – more than 84 percent of participating entrepreneurs have kept their businesses open for at least five years – the opposite of the usual business start-up rate in which 80 percent of new businesses fail, according to the Montana Budget & Policy Center.
The concept is not unlike that of the Osage CDFI – PBM Lending – that the Osage Nation is standing up for an expected August opening: Lend money to those who would otherwise be unlikely candidates for loans due to lack of credit, and educate them on how to be financially responsible. As the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis noted way back in 2008, economic development in Indian Country has long focused on tribal governments, but despite the success of casinos, natural resource development and tourism, the per capita income for Natives has lagged far behind that of the national average. That reality has led to more attention being focused on entrepreneurship, including by providing equity, which is often in short supply.
If Fairfax ‘looks like it does,’ tourists will not continue to come
Bills’ meeting attracted several potential lenders who would work with the USDA and SBA to provide collateral if the plans come to fruition. They included Blue Sky Bank, Elevate Bank (formerly the Bank of Pawhuska), 1st Bank in Hominy, PBM Lending, and Indian Electric Cooperative, which also has money to lend.
Bills’ plan is not to limit the loans to Native Americans, but to have them available to all eligible members of the community.
One of the main concerns expressed in the meeting was that time is dwindling.
James Ashford, who has bought a few buildings in Fairfax for restaurants, said that if Fairfax isn’t spruced up, any flood of tourists likely will go dry fast.
“I’d like to see some sort of economic development in that community,” Ashford said. “Roofs would help; we need help with that expense.
“When the movie drops, if people come to Fairfax and it looks like it does, it’s not going to last long.”
Christopher Coburn, the recently named director of the Nation’s PBM Lending bank, was unsurprisingly the most enthusiastic and optimistic banker in the room.
“I LOVE micro-enterprise development,” Coburn said. “We’re looking at getting into small business lending, agribusiness, consumer lending and home improvement loans.”
He described those categories as tentative, an “educated research guess.” He also said that he and the board of PBM are hoping to open the lending bank in August at the former First National Bank building in Pawhuska, which the Nation purchased several years ago.
If loans look anything like they do in the Montana Native American Collateral Support program, PBM and, perhaps, other banks will partially fund a hodgepodge of businesses. The Montana program has helped fund such businesses as a coffee shop, hair salon, logging operation, tour guide, photography studio and more.
A pressing need: How to deal with the expected onslaught of tourists
Mary Beth Moore, the Osage County Tourism Director, said the tourism rush expected as the hype about “Killers of the Flower Moon” grows needs to be addressed as soon as possible.
She said her office as well as the Pawhuska Chamber of Commerce are already constantly fielding questions about the movie and locations where it was filmed – and many of them are queries that she refuses to answer.
“This is not my story to tell,” she said. “We assure everybody that first of all direct descendants of those who lost their lives are still in Osage County.
“I am not willing to give out addresses so people can go poke around houses and cemeteries.
“Last night, (Lt. Gov.) Matt Pinnell was on TV and he said he is creating a ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ trail. I don’t have a clue where that’s going. I don’t know anything about it.
“This is my call for help, I guess you could say. Let’s have the conversation and see what steps we need to take.”
Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear was also mystified by news of a tourism trail devoted to the dark story of white greed and Osage murder that are chronicled in both the book and movie. In a text, he wrote: “I have never heard of this tourist trail.”
