mtpolitics.net

Governor Development

I don’t want this to be a ‘hit piece’ on Governor Schweitzer, I really don’t.  Yeah, I know, I know, I got real testy with him a while back when Great Falls lost a nice business lead due to his administration’s seeming inability to get the job done. But he seems like a man with ideas and I want him to succeed.

Nevertheless, I offer this information to those of you in the rest of the State of Montana who may not be particularly dialed in to Great Falls’ economic development efforts. About 5 years ago, our community recruited a man named John Kramer to be our economic development guru.  He has completely revitalized our Great Falls Economic Development Authority.  In whole or in part due to Mr. Kramer’s efforts, Great Falls has seen several significant new businesses locate to our community, not counting the one where our Governor’s office dropped the ball.  Prior to coming to our town, Mr. Kramer was in Fargo, North Dakota, where he is credited with recruiting something like 5-10,000 new jobs.

So you can imagine how dismayed we all were when we learned he was leaving Great Falls to obtain better pay elsewhere.  Last week, the Great Falls Tribune printed an interview with Mr. Kramer about his efforts to promote economic development in Great Falls. I am not sure how long this will be available for free, so I’ll post some exerpts:

Every time, we come up with these projects now, we have the same problem. What are we going to use to close the deal? The state has no money. We used everything we can get from the city and airport. We’ve used what we can from our loan programs. We’ve put together some great projects but we’ve done it by scraping things together. We are scraping bottom.

The state administration seems to want to control the growth of the cities. It seems to me to be so backward. They profess to wanting to be pro-economic development but they don’t give them any tools to work with on the local level. Other states go to the cities and say, what do you need to grow and create good jobs. The other states are encouraging the cities to be more aggressive. This state is the opposite of that.

We have all the materials — good labor, good schools, nice communities. It’s like a carpenter building a house. They’ve given us all the materials but you don’t have the tools.

The state needs to promote itself. This state does no marketing. We are the least-known state to corporate America.

You are on your own. In a sense, you are here. In other parts of the country, in the business of economic development, you had some strong allies. You had the state, the utilities, the railroads. In Illinois, half of my leads came from the utilities. The state had programs to help you land the leads.

So, what does this say about our Governor in terms of economic development? We know that, recently at least, he was jetting around the Middle East visiting our troops.  Probably not doing much for our economy over there. (Frankly, I wonder if our MANG troops were really all that awed to see our Governor.  Is that really a huge morale booster? To see the Governor of a small state?  I’ve been at several events where he and his predecessors have ‘dropped in,’ and, frankly, I wasn’t that impressed. Maybe I’m out of line here, but who gets more benefit from these trips, the politician or the soldier?)

Is it just me, or does our Governor seem to spend an awful lot of time outside of Montana hobnobbing while things aren’t getting done here?  Should he, perhaps, stick to the knitting?  Is he really leading this state in its economic development efforts?

I’m really starting to wonder.

(And, as long as I am at it, I am going to ‘respond’ in advance to some of our more doctrinal conservatives.  I know that pure capitalist thought would suggest that there should be no GFDA or state role in economic development.  Up to about 5 years ago, I was with you.  But many local businesses have put our money where our mouths are to support these efforts, and I am learning that business recruitment is an important necessity, and training dollars, low interest financing, and marketing are being offered by our competitors. So, unfortunately, that’s how the game is played and I don’t want to be a principled conservative sitting in the middle of a state devoid of economic activity.  And yup, when our government (and therefore taxes) are scaled back to what they should be, that alone will be enough to spur economic development.)