Russ Steele
The Former Editor of the Union, who used to sit on the ERC Board, is calling for a County Wide Economic Summit.
Our county has always prided itself on a “wild west” spirit, but you have to draw a line somewhere. We need a cohesive economic development strategy.
Right now we are all over the map, catering to retirees, 30-somethings and “old line” businesses — all at the same time.
Some examples:
•”Ron Moser, president of the Nevada County Economic Resource Council, said Rincon del Rio (a senior retirement complex) would provide significant benefits in terms of jobs,” according to the Auburn Journal.
•”Okay all those 30-40 somethings like me: The City of Grass Valley is looking for volunteer models for publicity this weekend,” reads the Downtown Association’s Facebook page. “This is your time to shine and be known (if you are not already)! We have big plans for GV.”
•”Emgold is in the advanced stage of permitting the re-opening of the Idaho-Maryland Mine and is completing an EIR for the project through its 100 percent owned subsidiary, Idaho Maryland Mining Corporation,” writes the mine’s president in the local newspaper.
Coming up with a cohesive strategy is like herding cats, thanks to our fiercely independent mindset. We also tend to lean too heavily on local government to help steer us along — a crutch.
We have had numerous economic summits and economic strategy planning meetings in Western Nevada County and they always end the same way, with lots of words by all the tribal leaders and no action. As a community we can not come up with a vision of what we want to be ten years from now. Without an agreed upon vision of want we want our community be economically in ten years, we are in capable of defining the steps necessary to reach our goal and allocated the community resources needed to make our visionary goal a reality. Every meeting, conference, and summit have failed the first step, an agreed upon vision for our future.
Every tribe in the community wants to take a different path to our future. Some want to go green, others want to revitalize our applied technology manufacturing industries, other want to focus on agriculture, others want Nevada County to become the Brentwood of the Sierra, home base business want more broadband and to be left alone, and local business just want more tourists. The ERC was tasked by the County to come up with a comprehensive economic development plan, but once all the tribal leaders and the county staff did their inputs and edits it was a un-comprehensive mess. We need a clear vision that can be put on a single page, not 23 pages of mish mash.
So, what did the County do, they fund a comprehensive web site and marketing plan that was due last October and still is not done yet. The rebranding logo was a milk toast bust, the web site was not mobile friendly, and required huge bandwidth to display the videos.
I will be discussing some of the comment to this proposal in future updates. In the mean time, let’s hear from the tribal leaders on how we come up with a clear concise vision of where we want to be in ten years.
Exit question: Is a clear vision of our economic future possible?
