Latest Best Place

The Sunday Missoulian gave an update on Mayor Engen's economic development effort, "the Best Place Project." The second sentence in the piece by Keila Szpaller anticipates the skeptics weighing in on the deal which, this being Missoula, is hardly news. Recently the community has received a bushel basket of studies (Fairgrounds, Downtown Master Plan, Events Center, etc.)all funded by Missoula and performed by out of town experts. Doing studies for Missoula is kind of a cottage industry, except that most of the cottages are in Portland or other cities.

The Best Place Project is going to be, first, studied by Garner Economics in their cottage in Atlanta, Georgia. The article mentions how Missoula will be put under the magnifying glass to identify "the good, the bad and the ugly." (I hope I don't end up in either of the last two categories, but I can't say how good the magnifying glass is.). The second part of the effort is a study by National Economic Development Services (also from a cottage in Atlanta, Georgia, since no one on this side of the continent understands Missoula and economic development like folks from the Peach Tree State)who will interview 50 key community decision-makers to see if Missoula really wants and will invest in economic development. Fifty opinions sounds about right for Missoula, if they are all different.

The cost of this study phase Garner and NCDS (hey, you pick a bureaucratic name for your firm, you are just asking for an acronym--I don't make up these rules.) are undertaking is for a modest $30,000 which is cheap by recent study costs. It's especially cheap when you figure that one or two round trip plane tickets and some hotel stays and meals will run around--what?--$500-600 minimum? If a team of two--which is a the craziest minimum a study like this needs--comes to Missoula from Atlanta for a minimum of two visits--one to wield the magnifying glass and one to report, that's at least a couple grand spent already. Now, the Mayor may be able to put the arm on the hotels or use City frequent flyer miles to get some of these costs comped, but this is still one very modest--some might say cheap--undertaking.

One of the reason it will be cheap, I suppose, is that the consultants will be reporting what past consultants have said before in past studies Missoula has paid for. Since it will be familiar to us, we won't be shocked:

"Spending money on studies like this isn't a cost, it's an investment."
"Economic development has no quick fix--it is a long term commitment."
"It takes money to make money."
"The public and the private sector have to work together if we want economic investment."
"Missoula's rank divisiveness needs to be fixed if we want to have economic development."
"Missoula should make better use of the research and development energy at the University of Montana."
"Missoula is a place of beauty with great schools--that's what businesses looking to invest in are looking for(ditto for our educated and loyal work force, parks, proximity to Glacier, Flathead and Yellowstone Park, relative low crime rate, good airport, Interstate, rail connection, etc.)."
"There are pockets of impressive and unique brilliance in Missoula that no one knows about--make them your strengths!"

The article reports that the public sector skin in this game comes in the form of $5,000 from MRA. The rest comes from the private sector which includes $5,0000 from the University of Montana (apparently privatized when I wasn't looking but perhaps finally owning up to being Griz, Incorporated.), St. Patrick Hospital, NorthWestern Energy, First Security Bank, and Washington Corporations. Even before the studies are begun, our consultants are saying Missoula needs to have $600,000 to nearly a million dollars a year to get into the economic development game in a serious productive way.
(If their study ends up saying "With a million dollars a year, the Missoula community could create 25 jobs each year at $40,000 annual salary," I am getting myself in the economic development study game.).

So, what will the skeptics the Missoulian reporter identified be saying?

"We need an outside perspective from far away because we are too close to our own problems to understand them."

"Thank goodness Missoula is doing another economic development study. The three or four that we got since the mid '80's seemed to have worked out pretty well."

"Good thing we waited until at least a year after the economy was in the tank to start our economic development strategizing. What if the disasters that showed up on Wall Street and in the National economy in 2007 and 2008 weren't as bad as some people said they were going to be?" Now we're absolutely sure.

"Who could have known Missoula--as the Mayor observed--"doesn't have enough outside sales?" All the stuff we make here in the Missoula Valley is just stacking up in warehouses, I guess, because we lack a crack marketing and sales department.

"MAEDC stands for Missoula Area Economic Development Corporation. And what do they do again?"

Look, I know things in our local economy stink. For the most part, it's largely not a locally-based problem. Yes, there are local systemic problems--anyone who has attended any of the one million economic outlook presentations given by Larry Swanson of the UM O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in the past 10 years knows that.

And it's not that we are such a divisive community. We disagree about lots of things. Except for inartful and demonizing way viewpoints are typically expressed, the disagreements are good for us. What we need to get our heads around is how to fight fairly and to recognize when we have won or lost the argument about an issue and still treat the other side like a neighbor. We need someone writing newspaper editorials like Sam Reynolds did.

My skeptical take is that we have enough smart, energetic, experienced and connected people in Missoula to fix what can be fixed with our economy. What can be fixed should have been fixed, however, by those paid to keep it fixed, and where is the accountability for that? What we lack in my opinion is homegrown vision and leadership and accountability to put it all together. That has been the problem with almost every study we do.

Some fairly influential people have put their (and our)money and their reputations behind this enterprise. They think--no, believe--we will get something different or better than what we have gotten before. That's a relief.