Russ Steele
I went to the Joint Meeting of the Board of Supervisors and City Councils from Grass Valley, Nevada City and Truckee and sat in the front row with another blogger George Rebane, who posts at Rebane's Ruminations. The Press had a dedicated table but, no table for bloggers. I was kidding the Supervisors and Council about maybe next year they could include a table for local bloggers. But, in retrospect maybe that is not a good idea since we are more proactive than the passive press. George read a statement giving his views on the where the focus of economic development should be, and at the break I challenged Libby Seifel for continuing to ignore the existence of the ERC Business ReLocator data base in her report and presentation. We have agreed to exchange views on this issue by e-mail.
The Union's Dave Moller wrote from the press table: County told now is time to grow business
Summit of political leaders hears from author of controversial economic report.
The current downswing in the economy probably will last the rest of the year, and now is the time for Nevada County to attract business, according to a San Francisco consultant.
At a joint meeting Friday of the Nevada County supervisors and the city councils of Truckee, Grass Valley and Nevada City, Libby Seifel, of Seifel Consulting Inc., said the county needs "a shift of focus" away from just attracting tourism. The county needs to attract new firms and expand what business it has, Seifel said at the meeting to discuss economic development in the county.
Seifel authored a 2007 report for the county called "Western Nevada County Economic Development Strategy." Its recommendation to shift strategies dismayed many local officials, who in January said tourism should remain an important segment of the county's economy.
But on Friday, Seifel stuck by her earlier advice, saying the county needs to aid recruitment of high-tech, high-paying businesses with a one-stop center of information, "a central database or Web site where people attracted to this county can go," Seifel said.
After Seifel mention the need for this data base the third time, I was ready to jump up and scream. Instead, I buried my head in my hands wrestling with my emotions, I had spent two years working with Larry Burkhardt to build the data base she said we needed.
George leaned over and whispered "why are you praying."
"I am was just trying to get control of my emotions," I said.
About that time Sally Harris called for 15 minute break. I went and introduced my self to Libby Seifel and asked her why she kept saying the County needed a data base where potential business wishing to expand could go to get information on available land and sites to expand. My question to her was, "Are you aware the ERC already has a business relocation data base and has since 2002, which has all the information in it you keep telling use we needed.
"No," she said, "I was not." She explained that someone else did that part of the report.
"Well on the day I read the report there were 93 business and business properties available to companies wishing to relocate in the ERC Business ReLocator data base," I explained.
I went on to explain that the data base is updated weekly from the MLS listing, and that property owners that do not want to list their property through a broker can log in to the Business ReLocator and post their property in the data base. I explained that the built in search engine can provide demographic information about the kinds of other business surrounding the target properties. As the break was coming to an end, I asked one more question important question.
"Since this was economic development report, why were no business people interviewed, only government people?, I asked"
"We interviewed two not profits," she said. "But I did not do that part of the report."
As the urge to scream again over took my brain, I suggested it was time to take advantage of the break. Clearly taken taken aback by my stream of he asked for my contact information so we can continue discussing the deficiencies in her report after the meeting.
All that said, there were some real nuggets in Seifil's presentation that are directly connected to what George Rebane had to say, and to an excellent comment by Steve Enos during the public comment period. I will explore these ideas and more in a future post, as it was a most interesting meeting with a large audience with may diverse ideas, many worth discussing.
