What Will Work?

As you are no doubt aware, economic development consultant Sandy Mathes spoke with the Board of Reps last Wednesday about economic development in general, and developing Otsego County in particular. He repeated his message to business leaders in Oneonta a few days later, and the Daily Star summarized it here.

I found some of his thoughts compelling – actually, most of them – and any concerns about his message that I had were the result of my reluctance to government jumping into an alliance with business, to the benefit of the latter. I don't believe that government exists to serve business (“The business of America is business”), but to serve the people. Sometimes serving business achieves this goal, and sometimes it leads us further from it. Also – I'm a little concerned about this, but I'm not exactly sure why.

Overall, Mr. Mathes told us that we need to market ourselves wisely, consistently and aggressively. Can't argue with that. He also, when asked, emphasized that long-term planning and prioritization was crucial. First the towns, villages and city: then the County should assess those plans, see what commonalities they have, see who wants to opt into aggressive economic marketing and who doesn't, and then create a county plan designed to take everyone into consideration.

A comprehensive plan like this – a long-term, time- and energy-intensive process, involving everyone with a stake in our county's future – has long been a goal of mine. I think it's essential for any organization to know what its priorities are, and what goals it's pursuing. When that organization represents citizens, it's doubly important. There's not going to be any substitute for aggressive marketing if we really want to address economic development, but if we don't have general agreement about what that means, and where we want to go with it, we'll be tripping over each other from the very beginning, and we won't get anywhere.