MADRAS — Job creation is not a problem in this fast-growing part of Central Oregon, but finding the people to staff those positions and creating amenities that will attract those people to town are the top issues facing the city, according to a group of business and community leaders who attended a business roundtable Wednesday.

Madras still needs more restaurants, shopping and cultural options to attract more residents, local leaders said at the event, held as part of Economic Development for Central Oregon’s annual Industry Month.

The Madras Urban Renewal District, which has spent $4.4 million on a variety of projects from blight removal downtown to landscaping projects on North Y Avenue, is the “largest infusion ever of public dollars for economic development in Madras and Jefferson County,” said City Administrator Mike Morgan.

The district was created to invest in a downtown area that is plagued with small lot sizes and low property value and is subject to flooding, Morgan said.

But new residents are needed in order to attract more businesses downtown and support more amenities, such as a new golf course, said Cameron Craig, project manager at Yarrow, a 900-acre subdivision east of town that has begun selling homes priced between $229,000 and the $400,000s. The city needs to continue its investment and bring more professional jobs to Madras, Craig said.

Yarrow home sales have started slow, but could pick up as more are built and an advertising blitz along the Interstate 5 corridor from Vancouver, Wash., to Eugene begins to attract more retirees and young professionals, he said.

“We’re taking some risks, but feel strongly those are going to sell,” Craig said. “We’ve had a lot of hits off the Internet — people like what we’re doing.”

Agriculture and manufacturing, two of the community’s long-established industries, were represented at the roundtable by companies that have a global reach.

Seed broker Central Oregon Seed Inc., which contracts with local farmers to produce and sell local seed crops, said farmers are in decent shape this year due to wheat prices that have reached 30-year highs, driving other crop prices up with them.

Two-thirds of the company’s business goes to Europe, where a strong euro has increased the company’s profits further, Weber said.

“Jefferson County is the number one carrot seed production area in the world by far,” Weber said. “We just want to maintain our market share and integrity.”

Another long-standing employer, Keith Manufacturing Co., faces competition from a Netherlands-based company which buys all its manufactured goods from China.

“We’re struggling most with labor,” said Mark Foster, company president.

The company could begin using robots to assemble a new pallet walker that is sold around the globe, or could use prison labor from the newly opened Deer Ridge Correctional Institution to weld and fabricate the products.

“We have a ready-made work force,” said Parrish Van Wert, community development coordinator of the prison. “If there’s a chance to lose a company or jobs offshore, we want to talk about it first.”

The minimum-security prison has 106 inmates and expects to double that by the end of the year, Van Wert said.

Deer Ridge also has 200 employees, including 19 nurses from outside the region, Van Wert said. Most of the employees came seeking Madras’ “small-town lifestyle,” he said. The county also plans to create an economic development position using lottery money and private investment, and to build a new county courthouse within five to seven years, said Jefferson County Commissioner Mike Ahern.