My print column this week deals with leftover thoughts from the State of Alamance panel discussion on Friday.
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Everybody knows the drill.
It starts with a rumor here, a loose lip or two there. Next thing you know, the news is out that a full-blown mystery company is looking at property for some new industrial venture. The mystery company isn’t named, of course, which is why it’s a known as mystery company to start with. See, some things in life do make sense.
As it turns out, recruiters from the area Chamber of Commerce are hush-hush about this mystery company. County or city officials aren’t saying much either — except for perhaps one who will drop a hint to a hungry reporter desperate to do a story. Sometimes these industrial recruitment projects have colorful code names like the ones used for military operations. Such tactics are used so people who might overhear at restaurants or bars won’t become suspicious when men in business suits talk openly about “Operation Visible Panty Line.”
Eventually, a small and somewhat speculative story might appear in the local newspaper. The recruiters and elected officials warn that loose talk could certainly squash the deal and that people doing so should be ashamed of themselves.
Always set things up to blame the media for potential failure. Why not?
Then, a week or two later, an announcement comes via e-mail or fax. There will be a large public event with tents, and folding chairs and everything.
This mystery company suddenly has a name. It’ll bring a number of jobs over a certain period of time.
The governor arrives, bands play, speeches are made, government offices take a holiday, heavy snacks may or may not be available depending upon the size of the company and number of jobs it’s planning to bring. And local politicians crash into one another in a chain-reaction style interstate pile-up trying to take credit for it.
Now this is a scenario that seems to play out in one North Carolina community or another every other month or so. The governor’s office always sends out press releases via e-mail anytime she’s about to make a public appearance so this stuff does become widely known. And this is the kind of public appearance Gov. Bev Perdue likes to make. In the governoring game it beats the heck out of declaring states of emergency and begging irrationally hard-headed people to leave the beach in front of a category 3 hurricane.
But it’s a scene unseen in Alamance County in a long, long time.
While there might have been a couple of small ones, the last truly big industrial announcement for this area might date back to July 2007 when Honda Aero made the decision to operate from a planned — and now real — facility at Burlington-Alamance Regional Airport.
The governor then, by the way, was Mike Easley. The operation’s code name? “Big Wing.”
It’s also not fiction that jobs are going to a variety of places all around Alamance County. Wake, Guilford, Forsyth and other counties are included in those press releases from the governor’s office fairly often.
Burlington Mayor Ronnie Wall, who sat on a panel for Friday’s State of Alamance breakfast, noticed the same thing. He asked himself the question posed by thousands of others as unemployment remains in double-digits here. “Why isn’t Alamance County getting those jobs?”
Wall said it’s obviously not location. Alamance County, after all, is situated at what Alamance County Chamber of Commerce president Mac Williams calls “Main Street” — if interstates 40 and 85 could be considered Main Street for North Carolina. It has nothing to do with the state’s convoluted tier economic system or available property. There’s a large available labor force — one that might need to be retrained for modern industries — but it’s here. Wall talked to economic development experts and others in the field.
“I still don’t have any answers,” he said.
Actually, it might be that there are far too many potential answers and some aren’t particularly palatable to many in the community.
The panel of Alamance Community College President Martin Nadelman, Wall and Williams hit on more than a few Friday. Eliminating the recruitment boundaries between the county, cities and towns was one. If Mebane gets a business, all in the county win, for example. Setting up facilities at ACC to retool the workforce was another. Could that mean a bond referendum for new buildings on the campus? Perhaps. The college needs the space. And could it mean investing in land, putting in water and gas lines then just giving it away to a business? As weird as it might sound, possibly.
And does it mean Alamance County taking extra steps to stand out in a crowd of suitors? Probably. Even if it means incentives, which everyone loves to hate. Me, too.
“We love our community and rightly so,” Williams said. “But to industries communities are commodities. While we’re a great community there’s someone out there that is also a great community and it’s willing to do a little bit more.”
A quote from Glen Raven chief Allen Gant was often cited throughout Friday’s event. “Compete or lose.” Gant likes to say.
And then there was this from Williams. “What do you want to spend your money on, growth or decline,” he asked.
It’s a fair question.
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ronnie knows the answer to his own question and the only thing that will help this community is if he and others in his position say it.
i respect ronnie and understand that he is 1 of the better officials in this county and he has always been responsive to the needs of the people who i call on him for, however he gets no pass.
ronnie is a person i like and know very well and i know he is a educated man therefore his asking the question makes me know he already knows the answer as well as you do madison but until he states the answer to the question that limits this county to its full potential then we will always be mired in the quiksand of mediocrity.
Not only is Michael an expert on public fiscal matters and economic development, he also is a treasure trove of knowledge about mediocrity.
A response I got via e-mail to this column from Bill in Burlington. I thought I would post it here. My only view about this is that corporations are here and a part of any community.
Madison:
I personally would not quote Allen Gant for any reason, much less such a crass statement. I would possibly consider “Adapt or die”, as there is some truth to it. We have gotten into the habit of genuflecting to “budiness mens” as if they
were gods, or at least superhuman. As for Gant, like the Kochs he had a hand up as they say, he did not do it all by his bitty self. Father Roger Gant was one of the founders/funders some 20+ years ago for the Locke Foundation as part of a gaggle of ultraconservative business people whose intent and effect was perfectly malign. We are reaping the bitter harvest of those times and actions. There are other things about Allen Gant which will remain buried but which he should not be at all proud of.
When I see the meeting, State of Alamance, my first reaction is that somewhere there is a “budiness mens” plotting to take property, repress and reduce wages and strong arm whole communities. We complain that much of which government
does is bad, but most of the people populating government boards and commissions are “budiness mens”. We never hear that fact. If they are so farsighted and invincible, why are we in the condition which we find ourselves.
I have a solution which would not charm Mac Williams and his friends because it is really off the wall. But it requires Alamance to rethink its purpose, resouces and possibilities. But you will go nowhere with the continuation of thinking as it has been. Search your own paper and look up Mac Williams, you will find over a hundred entries, most pitching the same futile BS. I may or not write it down, but it would improve the county in a number of ways.
Is this a community without identity or does it just not want to face its identity? Either could be true. Resistance to change, however, is a a huge factor I suspect.
both! which it both cases our people in office have created that atmosphere and our citizens have allowed it over decades.
also madison you are absolutely right about resistance to change.
…unitl we as a majority decide that the way we are currently doing things is from the past and without vision which leads us in a counter productive way and gains us results to match, we get what we deserve.