Mayor Tomlinson on Economic Development and the Chamber
May 4, 2010 14 Comments“…I believe a change in leadership at the Chamber Coalition is needed before our community can proceed toward a viable economic future. I also believe the Chamber Coalition cannot perform both a member-based government advocacy role and an economic development role funded through local government funds.”
View the Coalition letter to Benton County Commission (PDF)
View the Benton County’s response to the Chamber Coalition (PDF)
I (Mayor Charlie Tomlinson) delivered the following letter to the Corvallis City Council at the May 3, 2010 meeting.
On April 8, 2010, the Benton County Board of Commissioners received a letter from an Albany attorney, representing the Corvallis-Benton Chamber Coalition as legal counsel, “to request and demand compliance with the County’s obligated payment for the current fiscal year.” You have a copy of that letter and you also have a copy of the response to the letter written by the Chair of the Board.
This method of seeking payment under an agreement between the County and the Chamber Coalition is disturbing. Our community operates on relationship and trust between citizens and between organizations. When an organization resorts to the legal system to settle a dispute over a contract, relationship and trust are broken.
This is not the first time that the Chamber Coalition has had relationship problems. The relationship between Hewlett Packard and the Chamber Coalition suffered damage. Hewlett Packard is your largest property taxpayer and the Chamber Coalition is your primary economic development partner. You can search the Corvallis Gazette-Times archives to learn more about this episode. The Chamber Coalition strained its relationship with some elected officials in the debate over the Business License Fee.
Our community has significant economic development challenges facing us in the future. These challenges are outlined in the White Paper presented to the Council in your last meeting. Adding lack of trust and poor relationship between organizations makes our efforts much more difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.
Someone told me that if you find yourself in a hole, first put down the shovel. To that end, I believe a change in leadership at the Chamber Coalition is needed before our community can proceed toward a viable economic future. I also believe the Chamber Coalition cannot perform both a member-based government advocacy role and an economic development role funded through local government funds.
I ask the City Council to take an active leadership role in shaping our economy; a role based upon strong relationships and enduring trust. Regarding your partners, you are the customer; demand exceptional customer service and measurable outcomes that matter. Our citizens demand the same high level of customer service from you. Council leadership can work with the County Commissioners to shape a jointly-developed economic vitality program. You can ask your Chamber Coalition liaison to request that the Chamber Coalition Board end hostilities and that redress through legal means does not build relationships or trust.
For my part, I outlined my thoughts regarding economic vitality in past State of the City addresses. Whether you agree or disagree with my perspective, you owe it your constituents to move our community forward. Whatever your plan, ground it in strong relationships and trust with your partners. Where we are today cannot be where we are tomorrow.
In closing, I ask that you act decisively and strategically, and in a timely manner, in matters relating to economic development, and that you call for an end to this kind of misguided behavior.
View/Print this Letter as a PDF
Charlie Tomlinson, City Leadership, Community, Economy
As a Chamber member and local business owner, I am embarrassed that a legal claim was submitted to the county from our Chamber before exhausting all efforts to foster a beneficial partnership. This is a community that is only as good as our ability to work together in these challenging economic times when our economic survival is at stake. It’s time to stop sniping at one another and work together to create jobs and help our existing businesses grow and prosper — we have families to support, too. Economic development by the Chamber is not accomplished through threats and negative politicking. This is not the way we want to “brand” Corvallis. We are one of the most creative, bright cities in the world — and better than all this.
I agree with you Marti. We are better than this. But we can’t say that and also say “thats just how it is in Corvallis”. Too many difficult discussions have ended with acceptance of “how it is”. We have undervalued ourselves.
I love the statement by Charlie. “Where we are today cannot be where we are tomorrow.”
“I also believe the Chamber Coalition cannot perform both a member-based government advocacy role and an economic development role funded through local government funds.”
The Mayor points out something important here. I’m not sure how many Chambers are receive funds from local government, but this seems to present a conflict of interest. Isn’t the Chamber saying to members, on the one hand, we will lobby on your behalf to government officials, but with the other taking money from those same officials?
As a city councilor myself, I would have issue funding a program who’s mission, even in part, was to influence my decisions in favor of the interests of it’s membership.
Both the Chamber and DCA receive funding through our local government and it is a problem. You can’t be loyal to both sides in a dispute and there are bound to be disputes.
I’m concerned that this dust up has been continuing for a year with no apparent resolution in sight.
As a Chamber member (and past Board member and chair) I agree with Marti and fear that airing all this “dirty laundry” on the front page of the GT does little to enhance the reputation of the Chamber nor help them achieve their membership growth and economic development goals.
The comments on this post are all spot on. I am not surprised at all with where we are today. I saw this three years ago when I left the Chamber’s Board. I felt even stronger when I left their membership a year later. These problems are deeply seeded and the Board needs to take a critical look at why we are where we are.
If you take all the personalities out of this whole discussion, we’re still left with the results, and the results are unsatisfactory for Corvallis.
If we have to start fresh to get the results we need as a community, let’s pull out a fresh sheet of paper for the drawing board. From a staffing perspective, that may very well be whats needed- I’ll leave that discussion to the Chamber board.
As far as the game plan though, the PTF document seems to be pretty sound. Loyan and I had a conference call with the PTF consultant a few months back, and he felt like the plan was salvageable, given certain action items were prioritized.
One of the things the consultant called for was consolidation of the different ED organizations. Makes sense considering the efficiencies that would create, and the potential for great synergy and momentum.
Perhaps now is the perfect time to explore that, and take a fresh crack at executing the PTF plan as it was originally presented to us.
There must be some irony in the fact that the organization dedicated to Economic Devlopment in Benton County hires a Linn County Law Firm. Perhaps there is a very valid reason. Nevertheless the Chamber Coalition should be Fully committed to Benton County businesses whenever possible.
Matt,
The economic development committee of the chamber coalition operates separately from the rest of the functions of the Chamber Coalition, to maintain the intent and focus on the goals that were inherent in the Economic Development partnership. All of the funds for Economic development from the city and county are maintained in a separate bank account, and are accounted for separately. All of the work that the ED funds pay for, John Sechrest’s and Aaron Edward’s time is non-advocacy related. There is no presence of the Government Affairs work of the chamber coalition in any of our Economic Development activities.
Regarding the merger, we had an independent Economic Development Partnership that worked for years, struggling to reach critical mass while paying its overhead, without the tools needed to be effective. The EDP board saw the merger with the chamber as a chance to be more efficient, by reducing the overhead burden, and spending more on direct effort towards the work of Economic Development. We have successfully implemented that plan, while maintaining independence for ED activities. Since the merger, effectively the chamber has been generous in providing rent, telephones, internet, accounting systems, fundraising and more, all at very reduced rates or free, with no strings attached. In an ideal world, as a community, we could create and resource an independent Economic Development function adequately…but that hasn’t been in the cards, and I don’t see it in the community’s financial future.
If un-merging the organization is the only option offered here on this forum, I would ask for the commitment for the appropriate level of private funding for economic development from this group, and would also have to ask, where were they 3 years ago when by financial necessity we, as the EDP board, went this direction.
Chris, I disagree with your assertion that “the results are unsatisfactory for Corvallis”. This seems to imply that the work John and Aaron are doing doesn’t meet objectives, or is ineffective. They are getting an amazing amount done for very little. If what you are trying to say is that, with more resources and coordination, more could be done, I agree.
Katherine, please direct us to any information that can help us understand and measure the return on (ED) investment with the Chamber.
I have not found the monthly ED reports for the past nine months to be enough to base a fair judgment on. Your passion support of the Chamber is noteworthy, but its not fair to ask us to determine the value of the Chamber’s ED work based on your testimony.
Loyan,
What level of reporting could you base a fair judgement on?
The monthly reports http://www.cbchambercoalition.com/index.php/econdev/edreport.html show ED activities, Programs led, significant efforts, and client work and major Client outcomes, including ED work classified by: New Business, Expansion, Diversification, Rentention, Acquisition, with a monthly summary of Jobs impacted and jobs created.
Would you rather see success stories? We’re limited by client confidentiality with a fair number of local companies that we work with, and all state referred recruiting is limited by confidentiality with the clients.
Improving the reporting is a continuous process, balancing the factors of staff effort, client success (often measurable months and years after offering assistance), and confidentiality. How much of the time and effort of the ED director should be spent making reports vs doing the work?
Chris, Loyan,
What outcomes do you expect, over what time frame, and what investment do you think the private businesses and citizens of corvallis should make in economic development?
Do you think there is any value in aiding start ups and small traded sector business grow locally?
the Chamber Coalition’s Corvallis atty referred to the Albany law firm.
I believe a lot of this will be addressed at the City Club meeting this Monday. Please visit: http://www.cityclubofcorvallis.org/
I love Corvallis, but we are moving away from an enlightened community and more into an elite one. What do outsiders think of us? From the ones I have polled, it is not looking good. I think we spend so much time convincing others and ourselves that things are good, we run out of time to actually do anything productive. We are running out of bandaids. It’s time for surgery!
I would give John Sechrest most of the credit for what is productive in Corvallis, but not necessarily the chamber.
I love Corvallis for the same reason I love the United States; it is a great place to live, but we tend to think we are better than everyone else.
I encourage everyone reading this to attend the Corvallis Budget committee TOMORROW 5/11 at the Lasells stewart center at 7pm – and sign up to testify. Let your city councilors know that you think Economic Development should be part of what they (the City Council) pay attention to (many don’t believe that citizens think it is important), and let them know if you have thoughts on how Econ Dev. should be handled and funded. They’re planning the budget for 2011…and they need to hear from you.