Economic analysis ‘sobering’

PALMER — Having surveyed the business community, a borough consultant had some advice for the Mat-Su Borough Assembly when considering whether to spin off the borough’s economic development department into a standalone nonprofit.

“It’s your responsibility to be specific about what results you’re after,” Eden Lovejoy told the assembly at a March 18 meeting. “Adding another nonprofit into this environment without a clear focus direction and a result wouldn’t change your position.”

She said that the borough has a reputation in the business community as unpredictable and for starting projects it doesn’t finish.

“There is a pattern perhaps, or a perceived pattern, of an inability to follow through on private sector investments and projects and that has created an environment of mistrust,” she said.

Everyone is frustrated — government officials and businessmen alike, she said. Communities that have been successful in the economic development field have been intentional about what they wanted. Austin, Texas, for example, wanted to diversify an economy based mostly on government-sector jobs. So city leaders set that as a goal and achieved it, Eden said.

She said she ran into three opinions on the idea of an economic development nonprofit. Some people said government should just stay out of the private sector altogether. A second group said the borough was already engaged in development work and should continue that, respecting the work that has been done and allowing it to reach its goals. And a third group was enthusiastic about the idea of a new nonprofit.

Assemblyman Ron Arvin said some of the problem with the borough’s economic development efforts has been something like a fracturing of the community.

The borough already has a nonprofit that represents business interests — the Mat-Su Convention and Visitors Bureau — and the state-funded Mat-Su Resource Conservation and Development Inc., which is part of the Alaska Regional Economic Development Organization, has operated here since 1991.

But, in the tourism industry, which Arvin described as a major economic force in the borough, Arvin said he perceives a reticence to champion projects that aren’t tourism-related.

“How do you bring an activity that is not necessarily tourism-related, which again, is a large sector of our economy here, and tell the story that another maybe industrial activity isn’t going to compete with that?” he asked.

Lovejoy answered that whatever long-term plan the borough puts out for economic development, it can’t be a one-line solution. The borough can’t, for instance, just promote tourism or just promote industry. The borough needs a patchwork approach with different strategies to bolster different sectors.

“It has to be a quilt, it can’t be a single strategy,” she said.

Assemblyman Jim Colver described Lovejoy’s assessment as “sobering” and said that he saw in it evidence that the borough should get out of the private sector and not “try to outthink business.”

“What we ought to do is wean off our economic development department, fund this corporation with an initial grant,” he said. “We’ll give it a few years where we’ll provide support and then it will be weaned off on its own.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.