Junkets to Southern California and Germany, yeah, that’s what will help economic development . . .
RECOMMENDATION # 4 – ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TOOLKIT
ED PLAN *** Promotion of Available City Financial Assistance
Continued promotion of financial assistance available through the City of Madison, including BREWD, TIF, Capital Revolving Fund, Facade Improvement Grant, Housing Revenue Bonds, Home Ownership loans, Energy Efficiency Stimulus Funds, and other CDA-sponsored economic and neighborhood revitalization projects.
Ok – how are you promoting these funds? How do people find out about them? Are they doing anything to increase the visibility of the funds? Or, do only those with special connections find out about the funds? Even more interesting to me is, why aren’t there competitions for these funds instead of “first come, first served”?
__________ Federal, State, Foundation Funding Guide
A more proactive review/promotion of federal, state, and foundation funding options available to the City or directly to businesses for economic development activities.
This makes sense, I think they should do the same for city funding or just combine the efforts.
__________ Commercial Real Estate Database
Collaboration with the local commercial brokerage community, and allied economic development partners, to enhance the type and accessibility of information about available commercial real estate.
This is the one where Cooley said Madison would bully the entrenched business community interests by taking advantage of being the 800 pound gorilla to make this happen. Great. So much for all this talk about regional collaboration.
ED PLAN___ Promotion of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs)
In partnership with neighborhood business districts, promote the use of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) to enhance and capture opportunities within those corridors.
No problem with this one, I’m just surprised it isn’t happening already and that we don’t have another BID yet, especially since talking with Susan Schmidt from DMI (Downtown Madison Inc) you just can’t help but get excited about them!
__________ Economic/City Financial Metrics
In coordination with the Madison Measures project, develop additional metrics to measure the state of the Madison economy.
Good. But I wonder, will it be things like measuring “demographics” that say that only high income people should live in Madison?
__________ “Madison” Branding Campaign
Develop a campaign for branding Madison as a preferred/competitive location for business.
I’m interested in how much this one is going to cost? I’m presuming it will involve hiring a consultant.
__________ Explore Future TIF Opportunities
In the context of the economic development emphasis of the recently adopted TIF Policy, review and map opportunities where the use of TIF could leverage additional private investment over the next five-ten years.
Finally!!! Pro-active decisions about what types of TIF projects we want!!! However, I’d like to see them tell us what their priorities are and how they will determine which areas have these opportunities.
__________ Community Tours
Meet/tour other Wisconsin/Midwest communities to learn more about their economic development approaches in an effort to gain additional ideas for Madison. This could also include tours of businesses within Madison.
Here it is! Junkets! When Chris Schmidt asked where to, it sound like Southern California, Germany and Sweeden were mentioned. While everyone else is having their budgets frozen, especially around travel, they want to increase theirs. In the age of electronic and video conference technology can’t they find a better way to gather information about what works in other cities and countries? And wow, more than one person was very adamant with me that looking to Southern California for solutions might not be the best model to follow.
__________ Business Appreciation
Events/activities in recognition and appreciation of businesses located within the City. This could be in partnership with community organizations directly supported by the business sector.
I don’t object to this, but I hope its not something that they spend alot of time on, given they are concerned about staff and not being able to do other higher priority items. We have several business organizations in Madison that should be able to do these types of activities that we could just “add on” to, instead of creating our own programs.
ED PLAN *** Continued Partnership with the CDA for Economic Development Projects
Per the 3-5 Year Strategic Economic Development Implementation Plan, further explore ways in which the Community Development Authority (CDA) can continue to promote economic development within the community.
So far, that partnership doesn’t seem to be working out so well. I’d like to hear wht the priorities are, what are measurements of success of those projects and what types of future plans they are thinking of. Also, does the CDA have the capacity to do more.
________*** Home Ownership and Rehabilitation Programs
Continued promotion of the home ownership and rehabilitation programs managed by the Office of Economic Revitalization.
Office of Economic Revitalization? Wow. I wonder how many people know what that is, cuz its not part of the regular city language. It’s Percy Brown who administers a few housing programs for the city, but I”m not sure that they are the types of housing that Cooley was talking about. And there are several other programs in the city in the CDBG office and then there is the goofy TIF program to promote homeownership. Again, I find it intriguing that housing programs are not considered economic development. I’d love to hear more about the goals and priorities and specific activities that might be done.
ED PLAN___ Benefit/Cost Model
As recommended in the 3-5 Year Strategic Economic Development Implementation Plan, develop and utilize a benefit/cost model to measure the fiscal impact of key development projects and to align TIF and other City economic development tools with the benefit received.
🙂 Yes! Let’s do it! I would like to see what the cost/benefit analysis would have been on Tomo Therapy or BioAg Gateway. The first project never happened and the second one hasn’t happened yet either. And if I heard Cooley, he seemed to be backing away from the BioAg Gateway project, saying that biotech isn’t the area where we are going to create alot of jobs.
ED PLAN___ Project Facilitation Fund
As recommended in the 3-5 Year Strategic Economic Development Implementation Plan, capitalize a Project Facilitation Fund (beginning with $1 million annually and adjusting as needed) to provide needed incentives to develop infrastructure or provide direct financial incentives to critically important high fiscal impact, high quality job-generating projects.
I think this is a great idea. It would be great to be able to say, “here is the money for economic development” and here are our priorities and projects we want to fund. I also think that if we can put $1M in for Economic Development, I think we they should also put $1M in for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, because the workers are going to need some place to live.
RECOMMENDATION # 5 – PUBLIC/PRIVATE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TEAM
ED PLAN *** Evangelism of Business Resources and Vision
In partnership with other economic development and business organizations, do more to share the resources available in Madison with employers who are looking elsewhere for possible expansion/location, and the vision of a great business sector throughout the entire community.
What does “do more’ mean? What do they plan to do? Again, this is supposed to be a workplan.
__________ City Partnerships
Similar to the “Sister Cities” concept, develop relationships with U.S. cities in other regions of the Country for the purpose of generating leads of businesses looking for Midwest locations.
Giggle. I hear originally these were called “Brother Cities” . . . back to the junkets. And when he talked about this at the briefing for the council, he really did talk more about overseas opportunities.
ED PLAN *** Better utilization and partnership with allied business and economic development organizations
Promote better utilization and partnership with the City’s allied business and economic development organizations, including: Chamber, CVB, THRIVE, MAGNET, BID, DMI, Smart Growth Greater Madison, Dane County, UW, MATC, Urban League, MMSD, business incubation facilities, Central BID, neighborhood business associations, neighborhood planning councils, etc.
Ok – again how, and what are the items that will be accomplished as a result?
RECOMMENDATION # 6 – ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES
ED PLAN __ Mission Statement
As outlined in the 3-5 Year Strategic Economic Development Implementation Plan, revise the DPCED mission statement to include “economic development in support of high qualify of life” as a fundamental goal.
This was the rallying cry of the EDC back when Zach was still on the council, I can’t believe they just haven’t done it already. And, I was very surprised to see Cooley poo-poo the idea and say that it wasn’t a priority.
ED PLAN __ Staffing
As outlined in the 3-5 Year Strategic Economic Development Implementation Plan, fully staff the Economic Development Division.
Again, Larry Palm tried to ask what this meant? Didn’t get an answer. Not even close. I would think if you really wanted more staff, you’d come forward with a proposal.
ED PLAN *** Training
As outlined in the 3-5 Year Strategic Economic Development Implementation Plan, expand funding for professional training of Economic Development Division staff.
I have no problem with this, in fact, citywide we need to spend more money on training for our staff. I’d just want to make sure that they are getting the best bang for their buck and not wasting money.
CONCLUSION
So, there you have it. How many jobs will all this create? How much will it all cost us? What will we expect to see that is different in a year? Or two, or three? What are the top priorities? Who’s going to do the work? etc. etc. etc. It all seems to be missing. I’m actually quite shocked that in the entire document, jobs are only mentioned twice. And in relation to supporting “physical connections” for “quality jobs” in one place. With the economy in the shape it is in, shouldn’t that be the number one priority. Especially if you are concerned about disposable income. It seems this plan is focused on bringing people who will have high paying jobs here, but not creating jobs for the people who live here. Is that what our tax dollars should be spent on?
This is actually quite the departure from the plans originally laid out in the original plan. Just take a look at page 27 here for an exaple of how shockingly devoid of details this workplan is and how far they have strayed from the original intent. I have no problem with adjusting to the economy, but if newsletters and annual reports were recommended to enhance communications and those are still goals, why did those types of details disappear? Why are low priorities now high priorities? Why didn’t the work get done? Why were high priority projects shelved? Why are projects like the East Capital Gateway (East Washington Ave) not major workplan items if they are about to decide who to hire to market the area? What happened with all the groups and task forces and advisory groups that were supposed to be formed? Why did some items change categories from the original plan?
I’m not sure there is anything bad going on here, but there’s no explanation of anything. If you’re making these changes, you should probably lay the foundation to explain what is happening. Yes, we all know the economy changed and that was a catalyst, but what was the thinking behind all of this? What do we hope to accomplish as a result of these changes? And why, or why, did all the details just disappear?
For information about the presentation by staff and questions the council asked, see here.
For recommendations 1 – 3, see here.
