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JOBS AND GROWTH FOR THE CITY OF DAVENPORT
by Bill Lynn, Fifth Ward Alderman
One of the biggest issues in Davenport
is how do we increase the number of jobs and grow the economy. If we can do
this, we will increase demand for housing; and since we have
a local option sales tax this will increase the sales tax revenue
we generate. The question is how we do this. Many
cities struggle with this, so we are not unique. Also
if you look at the overall growth of Iowa, we are doing well
as a state. While I have been critical of Davenport’s
attempts to grow, I will tell you that our lack of growth in
population in recent years is not unique. Many large
cities in Iowa have actually lost population including Des
Moines. We have at least added about 1000 people
since the year 2000.
I believe many of our approaches
are misdirected. For
instance we have attracted a few companies using Tax Increment
Financing (TIF). (I explain and discuss this in another
document by that name.) This has provided some success,
but the cost is high, and in recent
years many governments have started to turn away from this
method.
Several years ago we developed
an industrial park, and this has met with some success in
attracting businesses, but it usually requires some other
incentives. Also, the city
discovered that they had a problem
attracting businesses to the industrial park because they
did not have a rail spur, and we are now in the process of
installing a rail spur.
I believe there are five things
we can do to promote growth in our area, and the cost is
surprisingly low. In some
cases it is zero. These are:
1 - Become more facilitative
and less regulatory, i.e., send businesses the message we want
them here.
2 - Become more small business
friendly.
3 - Develop our workforce.
4 - Keep taxes and fees low.
5 - Promote Davenport.
What should we do to attract
businesses and jobs?
There are several things we need to
do, and the cost is not that high. The first thing
we need to do is to make our city business friendly. We
are a very bureaucratic city. We often make it difficult
for businesses to operate in our town. Even if they
follow the rules, often they find
themselves confronted with problems they were not warned
about.
First, I have
often said we are “regulated
but not facilitated.” We do not work with many
businesses in a way that makes them feel we want them here. We
often are inconsistent in the way we deal with people. The
first thing we need to do is train our employees how to work
with businesses to make it easier for them to do business with
us. For instance, when a company wants to do business
with us, we should assign them a counselor. That counselor
should work with them to show them what steps they need to
take and in what order. Too many times I have seen people
invest money in a project and not be told they need to get
a zoning variance. After they make the investment they
find out they can’t obtain the variance because of protests
by local owners. If they try to obtain the variance first
and they don’t receive it, then they don’t have
an investment. If they invest a lot of money and lose
it because of this, they will never do business in Davenport
again. This is our loss.
Second, we must
work with small businesses. If
there is anything that tells you how a city is doing, it is
the growth of small businesses. We simply don’t
make many small businesses feel welcome. I have
received letters from many small business
owners telling me they are moving out of Davenport because
of poor treatment or lack of cooperation.
Third, we must
develop a strategy for developing our workforce. Most communities today do not have a program
to develop a workforce, but in today’s market work force
is the most important issue. I am told by people working
in this area that a trained workforce is one of the best ways
to attract new business. Companies today go where the
workforce is. In the past the workforce came to them,
but that is no longer true. Well trained employees are
important today, but we are not doing a good job of training
a workforce for today’s companies. We need to facilitate
a meeting of the local educational institutions and businesses
to determine the needs of business and be sure we train students
in the skills they need for today’s job market.
Fourth, we need
to be sure that we keep taxes and fees as low as possible. These are costs to
the business and when they are too high we discourage businesses
from locating in Davenport. While it is necessary to
keep taxes and fees down, it is also necessary to build and
maintain infrastructure. In a recent article in the August
28 Wall Street Journal entitled ‘Road Work’ it
is pointed out that too many cities spend money on non-productive
items and don’t take care of the infrastructure meaning
sewers and streets. They point out that successful cities
take care of there infrastructure. While amenities are
nice additions to the city, they do
not replace good streets and sewers.
Finally, we must
promote Davenport. We
simply do not brag on ourselves enough. This can be accomplished
very cheaply with technology. Anytime we have something
occurring in Davenport, we should send out a press release
nationwide announcing it. We have someone in charge of
media and they should be writing press releases almost daily
and emailing them nationwide. One thing I have found
out in my many years of dealing with the media is that you
don’t really know what might interest them, but new stories
are worth a lot in terms of promotion. Why do I believe
this is important? It is simple. Many people do
not know Davenport exists or where it is. Good media
stories provide information that people see and the next time
they look for somewhere to locate a business, they might consider
us. Something we think is unimportant might be newsworthy
somewhere else. The dividends this might pay are immeasurable.
In conclusion, I believe these five things could help us in
creating more jobs for our community and increasing our population
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