So, guess how late they started and who was in charge of starting the meeting . . . and look for the comments in red that seem to be sending some interesting messages.
Wait for it . . . wait for it . . . we waited for it, 13 minutes before Alder Bruer came in the room and started the meeting, then he babbled for a short minute or two and then introduced Clear who described how we got where we are [It made me smile, knowing how badly the conservatives did not want to do the Economic Development Plan.] and made excuses about why the Economic Development Plan for this year got approved so late. Bruer says the reason more people are not here is because they were out of town and that is wasn’t a scheduling conflict [Is he that oblivious? Verveer and Maniaci came in at the tail end of the meeting when the State St. Oversight committee was done discussing Peace Park. Who knows who went to the Zoning Code meeting, but I’m guessing that is where Rummel was.] or lack of interest.
Alders Present: King, Bidar-Sielaff, Palm, Rhodes-Conway, Clear, Schmidt, Clausius, Bruer, Pham-Remmele (Late, when the meeting was over, Verveer and Maniaci)
No Shows: Sanborn, Cnare, Rummel, Eagon, Skidmore, Solomon, Kerr, Compton, Schumacher
EDC Members Present: Julia Stone (and Alder Clear)
Members of the public: About 6, I think when you remove the reporters/bloggers and Thuy’s husband who attends most meetings with her.
Please note some of the concerning statements made in red below. Will comment more tomorrow.
6:17. Finally Cooley gets started with his powerpoint presentation.
Why are we doing this? Cooley says we have a false sense of security because “Madison Best” awards are abundant. [Pause to get microphone, where Bruer admits he is “sitting in back cuz he can hardly hear him back here”. He spends the whole meeting in the back of the room talking to business community folls.] Cooley points out the “best” awards look at the Metro area and that they are not for Madison only, but the Madison area. Cooley says Madison is lagging the rest of the county in median income by 18% (Madison’s median income is $50 – 55K and the rest of the county is $60 – 65K), wealth (and their discretionary income) is moving to the suburbs and businesses will follow. He talks about how this isn’t unusal in many cities. [Wow, was he just comparing us to inner cities that experience white flight? Do you think they have median incomes of $50K?] Fitchburg and Sun Prairie show and even more stark changes in incomes with nearly $70K and $65K median incomes respectively. [Ok, so this is even more ironic as Fitchburg doesn’t have a downtown.] He says the velocity and trends of change are really concerns because the outlying areas have much higher incomes. Fitchburg had a 37.6% increase, Sun Prarie a 25.9% and Madison 21.2% in median incomes 2000 – 2008. [Its disturbing he doesn’t mention the numbers of residential homes built during this period and the fact that you could buy more home for the same dollars in some of these areas. Finally, he doesn’t mention that other areas of the state and country are losing population and we are lucky to have growth. He makes it sound like people are moving out of Madison, when in fact we are growing as well.] He says that Madison jobs grew 10% and the county’s jobs grew 15% and he points out this is a 50% difference. Again the slide says “as household and discretionary income moves, jobs follow” seeming to imply people are leaving Madison. Says we need jobs throughout the spectrum (low end jobs and high end jobs) and we needs jobs that are stable. The slide says “One of the most important functions that a city can provide
is an environment of stable, quality jobs for its citizens.” He says the City is driven off property tax and property tax is direct reflection of average incomes and wages. 70% of our revenue is from property taxes. Says the latest numbers that show an increase in property taxes for Madison but that doesn’t include the residential and that the increase was in commerical construction – he says it doesn’t count tho because they are projects that were in the works before the economy crashed.
Commercial property increased $377.8M
Residential property decreased through re-evaluations by $233.8M
Property Formerly Exempt increased by $12.3M [Now you can see what that fight is about.]
Total increase $224.5M [I didn’t detail everything.]
[Hmm, residential property values are down, but over all the city is up due to commercial real estate values and yet he is trying to tell us that we are in serious trouble? I don’t quite think his numbers or anecdotes are backing him up.]
Residential property values are down in 2009 by 1% and not increasing at the same rate (7 – 8% 2002 – 2006) as in previous years. [Again, he fails to mention the real estate market and what affect that has on all this.] He says we need high income jobs and properties so we can continue to keep the quality of life we enjoy here in Madison.
How economic development has changed? No longer chasing smokestacks, but looking at the environment we create and how we can encourage businesses and what barriers we create to businesses moving here. [He presents an interesting chart that I couldn’t successfully replicate for you.] They have done a SWOT analysis.
Strengths: Innovation, Existing Clusters (biotech), Workforce, Culture & Character (Cooley makes a snarky comment about the “character” of Madison and not needing to comment further), Quality of Life
Opportunities: Outperform region/state/nation, Emerging clusters, Build awareness
Weakness –Core perceived as inhospitable to business [Core what? He skipped over this and moved on quickly. I think he was talking about the alders.], Lack of risk capital, State business environment, Lack of awareness
Threats – Lingering recession/ paralysis, Anti-growth contingent – “BANANA”, Core asset values [Again, core what? I think he is talking about the property values in the downtown alder districts], Status quo attitude, Competition
6:28 – Matt M now explains the suggestions for the 2010 plan, explains where it came from (Based on 3-5 Year Strategic Economic Development, Implementation Plan. Adjustment for current economy. Guidance needed from Common Council and EDC.) Says that they need funding and staffing because can’t do it all. Goes over hand out, didn’t add much that wasn’t printed on the hand out. [I’ll put this up tomorrow with editorial comments about what is missing and further needed. Perhaps one of the first things they could do it become more public friendly and get the materials out ahead of time and provide them on their website? A link instead of handed out paper.]
DISCUSSION
Rhodes-Conway asked how to give input. Matt M says annotated handout is fine. Suggests that within each of the recommendation areas to mark priorities, note top 3 or 4, let them know where you have questions. No one right way to provide the feedback.
Clear says council leadership has added 2 additional alder positions to the Economic Development Commission. It will be discussed at CCOC July 7 and back at council on July 21st. Mayor and leadership feels this will help strengthen the committee.
Pham-Remmele – Says it is a well thought out and impressive plan, needs more time to go through and observe and compare to what she knows. Unprecedented economic downturn, just came from a special meeting with commerical real estate owners. Says we are discussing this as a family matter so she will discuss it openly – talks about Meadowood Mall which has Anchor Bank, branch library, Walgreens, barbershop, dry cleaner, chinese take out and pizza and hardware store. Heart of community and having alot of problems she doesn’t want to bring up. She says she has 2 questions but then talks [!] about how they can’t keep this confidential any longer, wants businesses to stay, says they have lost some businesses, butcher shop became a community center, hardware store wants to be guaranteed that it will be stable or they will leave to their second store in Cottage Grove. She wants to ask him to please stay, and notes that “many man in the area would find an excuse to go to the hardware store 3 times a day, you know that”. She says she asked him not to put a closing sign up. She asked “what chip do I exchange with him?” [Wow, almost sounds like bribery the way she said it. I wonder if the businesses asked her that question.] On the other side people who live in the neighborhood want businesses to come to the mall. So, she trusts staff to be open and tell her how they are doing this. [Why does she feel the need to say that?] The question she has, how firm and how flexible is the 3 – 5 year plan? What about the urgent needs? We don’t want to lose any more of the tax base. Please be a honest as possible with me. [Sigh . . . ]
Cooley says it is tough, we need to change the entire city, it has to become more sensitive to bringing up disposable income and bring up wages. Otherwise stores will be moving. Talks about Willy Sutton when asked why he rob banks, Willy said “that is where the money is”. Businesses will move to suburbs if we do not change the dynamic. Downtown has to appeal to all people, not just students and state workers. Older areas of the city need to be redeveloped. Some of the workforce, affordable housing and homeless shelters have to be shared with the other communities – otherwise it won’t work. This isn’t a city or zoning decision, its a business decision. People look at the demographics and what the demographics will support. He says right now, there is nothing we can do.
Pham-Remmele says she wants to have a private meeting, they agree. Says we can’t wait 5 years.
Cooley says that we can be as flexible as we need to be. Some of the suggestions in the handout he suggest are not as important using the example of mission statement and website, but working on more direct efforts to figure out from a city perspecive what should we be?
Pham-Remmele asks about UW, but she says we need entry level jobs. Even low income to (need to?) bring home the bacon. Very important, start from the bottom up.
Clear says that Pham-Remmele asked a fundamental question, why should a business locate here instead of Sun Prairie, why should business staM in an at risk neighborhood (Meadowood vs Monroe St) not Cottage Grove. Clear asks how you address at risk neighborhood. How do we reverse the trend of hardware store being replaced with check cashing or . . . Pham-Remmele steps back in and adds liquor store?
Cooley doesn’t answer, says he is glad Clear said it was a rhetorical question. [I’m quite certain Clear never said that and it was odd how he sidestepped that question.]
Cooley says city is a wonderfully care giving society and it has changed the demographics of the city. Suburbs can do things that we can’t. We don’t have housing for middle, or upper management. It’s a race to the bottom. Maybe Madison [housing] should be a little higher priced than the rest of the area. It may take a fundamental change. And we need to do this with fact driven inforamtion. If we are going to be a successful city, we need to take a long hard look at what we are doing now. [Ok, his use of the word “demographics” is just starting to get a little creepy. It seems like it is code for something. Low-income? People of color?]
Pham-Remmele talks about how Judy Compton sold houses to many of the people in her neighborhood. [Why, wasn’t quite sure.]
Cooley says we need to have low crime and good schools. Companies can locate anywhere, but families will move somewhere because of the schools and crime. We have to be very aware of where we are today and if that is a compelling reason to attract the kinds of people we need to support the community.
Pham Remmele says she is very painful, but talks about schools and says people vote with their feet and move and as a compassionate city we think about those who don’t have that option.
King says there is some urgency, and the preception that Madison is unfriendly and asks how to turn that ship around. Says people like the older homes with character and they need alot of work and they don’t want to touch those houses, how will we reinvest in neighborhood? He talks about how the process is hard? How do we do that? [I’m completely confused, what process, its a “free market” process at the moment.] Cooley says “you are an alder and you can change that.”
King asks how they will communicate that thinkgs have changed. Someone with a bad experience will tell 20 people and someone with a good experience will sell one. Cooley points out the Mike Ivey article about the new very expensive building on W Johnson and how that developer couldn’t say enough nice things about Madison’s process. Also talks about how Full Compass has good stories to tell – however, he couldn’t seem to remember the name of the company. He talks about how perception becomes reality, says it has gotten better but still convoluted. Talks about Landmarks, Urbran Design Commission & Plan commission and about how things get sent to subcommittees [seriously? how often does that happen?] and referrals back and forth – he says more study doesn’t result in better end results. He then notes “historic is always old, old is not always historic”.
Clear says he is hearing the city process is improving but it takes a long time to get past the reputation.
Cooley says we can benchmark that – look at approval times in other cities and we can measure that. Madison’s unique way of doing things – everyone has a voice in it all the time. We can keep that character and work with it. Suburbs are taking it away from us.[Um, someone should give him the study the plan department did a few years ago that noted how long our approvals took and how we ranked with other cities.]
Bidar-Sielaff says that she has been to the suburbs and they are not taking anything away from her. She suggests we need to tell our own good stories. Need something besides the website. How can we highlight, with our partners, the good stories. Business of the month. Says those who live and work here has a story to tell.
Cooley says it is kind of in the plan, marketing both internally and externally. Will do it through website and using technology within constructions of state laws. They may do a blog “and the like”.
Clausius asks about recommendation 3 – community infrastructure. He talks about a roundabout and extensions for Parkside Drive and there is talk that the projects won’t stay in the budget. Steinhaufels is concerned about the projects not going through. How much support can he get from EDC with the capital budget. Round about was pushed back last year – its important for the Lien Road project. He says needs support for that project.
Cooley said that EDC should be weighing in on alot of things from crime statistics and ordinances. [Duh, remember when Zach very plainly told the council that the EDC didn’t want to get tied up considering ordinances that the city was passing and that they just wanted to do their work. We tried to refer items there, but they didn’t want that. Perhaps Cooley should have a conversation with (past?) EDC members about this.] He says we are blessed to have Matt, Michael, Don Marx and Percy who can find money.
Clear tells Clausius he should talk to alders on Board of Estimates. [Clausius is on BOE.]
Clausius asks about recomnedation #4 – commercial database. Right now major fast food franchise that wants to come in to Madison, but they want a regional training center. He says it would be good to have EDC out there to help. Doesn’t want to see it go to Fitchburg or Sun Prairie. Cooley says that Michael Gay has info, but database is not as developed. Individual brokers want to keep their own inforamtion. Milwaukee has a system that is now the de facto standard. Matt has been working with THRIVE for the past three months, but there are intrenched interests. Cooley says tho that “we will drive it [getting a commercial database] out of the City of Madison and take advantage of being the 800 pound gorilla.”
Schmidt asks about jobs and what the software will do to create jobs. Cooley says CRM (Customer Relation Management) is really the problem, we are our own worst enemy – anything that comes to city is open record. He says they are talking to companies about confidential matters, we don’t want to put that into a database that is readily accessible. We know what is going on, and we keep a good database ourselves, written contacts and in our minds. No real need to get that CRM database right now. The software could do follow ups, newsletters and ticklers.
Schmidt also says he never heard of the phrase “business homesteading”. Cooley says he made that up. Says the idea not quite flushed out. He talks about the Mayor’s ideas of green building and how the city could define buiding standards for city controlled land and that a couple could come in and build to these standards and if they stay there for a period of time, the land could be sold to them cheaply. He suggests that we do the same with businesses, if you do it this way, over time we might be able to make a deal. He asks how do we incent from a policy prospective. He says they are playing with the concept to see if it is going anywhere.
Schmidt asks about the community tours, where would they go? Cooley says Southern California, several looking for lower cost areas for manufacturing. Some have customer bases that need warehouse or distribution centers. They are looking at Mexico and others. He said “nobody in their right mind wants to go down there, espeically border towns.” 30% differential in costs by locating in midwest. He says we can do the same thing internationally. He says 2nd tier German and Sweedish companies want to have a US presence. He says their industry clusters and demographics that match ours.
Schmidt asked about cities that had similiar challenges as ours and were successful. Cooley says no one has had similar experiences. The recent economy changes are a “major reset”, jobs of the past are no longer going to be the jobs of the future. The way we used to cope with recession was to have safety nets, jobs aren’t going to come back this time, need to find those jobs that will have a competitive advantage, we need to work to grow our own and agreesively pursue more. Work with MATC to train people, we will lose and gain some people – we just need to make sure we gain the right people.
Schmidt asks how we can avoid common mistakes. Cooley says that we can’t over micromanage the workforce, we can’t become enamored with the next cool thing, which he points out is biotech and biopharma but then quickly notes that those are not big job creators. He says that biotech plays better in Madison and that we have a better shot here but every state and many cities think that and most of the centers are in Boston, San Diego and ?? South San Francisco?? Says we have a better chance because we have the workforce and university.
Palm asks about the perception of Madison. He points out that there have been a number of situations where the city was accused of putting up barriers, the projects were approved, but the businesses didn’t move forward. The businesses backed away. He says we are spending alot of energy helping someone who makes a stink and then we don’t get the benefits of all that work.Palm says that we can’t serve all of our customers if some of them are just playing with us.
Palm asks how do we assess which project get a priority, how do you decide? Is it first come first serve? Cooley says it is partially triage, partially opportunistic. Says TIF changes concentrate on creating jobs.
Maniaci and Verveer arrive.
Palm asks if additional city financial assistance. He notes that we had $1 for a revolving fund, how do we expand the dollars available. Cooley says that we need to take advantage of all the programs out there. He talks about a program he just found out about this morning, for city owned land, feds pay us back 45% of interest to purchase the land. There is also a program for privately owned land. Says an allocation has been made to Madison. Cooley notes communications are important and we need to be making sure we don’t leave things on the table, need to be time effective, need to make better use of consultants and the legislative side.
Palm asks about the workforce conference that was delayed because the staff says they don’t have enough staff. He asks “what is full staff?” Cooley says they are putting numbers to it now and they need to pick and choose and find out what the priorities are of the executive and legislative arms of government. He says that its not that they don’t care about the work force, but other people are working at it and they are at the table with them. [Sounds like they don’t intend to follow through on the workforce development work.]
Palm tries to ask the question again about how much staff they need. Cooley avoids answering the question. Says that is why they are here, to ask the council what their priories are.
Mendoza commends staff, Tim, Matt, Michael, Peggy. Work hard and you’re looking at a snapshot. They know the work plan is not all inclusive. Thanks council for interest and Bruer and Clear for remaining engaged as they are. Says there will be a menu of options, many of which will relate to the city budget. The question is what will the prioritize if they costs dollars, where will they devote limited resources. Says this is the next step in the conversations. Thanks Julia Stone from EDC for coming.
They ask if Julia would like to add anything ? She’s only been on EDC for one month but she ” fully agrees with Tim’s synopsis”.
7:35 ends, kinda.
They quickly annouce that this will be at the EDC at next two meetings (July 1 and Aug 5). [Wow, nice to do it while people are out on the summer vacations!]. They says they will have a bigger room because it has been crowded. They may have a broader public input session late summer or fall as well.
Everyone starts talking – Thuy yells at them to be quiet in her best teacher voice.
Cooley asks the alders to look at the increased use of BIDS, looking at map for logical places and they are looking to get together with alders and business leaders in that area to talk about the success. Says government can’t maintain the level of services the downtown bit is doing and wants others to have those advantages.
Then, I think they are done and adjourn again.
For recommendations 1 – 3, see here.
For recommendations 4 – 6, see here.
