FooteNotes

Happy Elite 8 Sunday! I’m sitting here waiting for my Sooners to take on powerful UNC with my fingers crossed! My bracket was “busted” with the Memphis loss, but an OU win would help to ease my pain!

Now on to a more important topic! This morning’s economic news is similar to past weeks, rising deficits and the hope that the economy has hit bottom and is on the rise. My home state, Arizona, is fighting over the same thing that most states are: how do you trim the budget without raising taxes and still be able to compete for economic development?

Unfortunately, this state’s posture appears to be to slash everything, including important economic development marketing functions and incentives that could attract jobs, plus possibly raise taxes. Are we “throwing the baby out with the bath water?” It appears so to me, especially when neighboring California has recently slashed its budget to the bone and raised taxes and fees—an invitation to business to, “say goodbye, Golden State.”

Now is the perfect opportunity to show outside businesses that Arizona is still tax friendly and has some attractive new incentives, including a nice solar tax credit program available to help them to invest here. Forward thinking here would be to set some new carefully targeted marketing dollars aside, pass the new solar credit incentive, and not raise taxes! The results would be the capturing of new locations and related tax revenues from California and elsewhere, some big results that will boost our economy for a relatively small investment! Boomer Sooner! Deane

Howdy Folks! I had the pleasure of hopping on the new light rail in downtown Phoenix with a client last week; our destination: Phoenix Municipal Stadium to catch a D-Backs/A’s Spring Training game. It was very quick and convenient — just a two-block walk to the stadium after we exited at our stop.

Honestly, the real draw for me, besides saving about $10 for parking, was “first time rider” curiosity. We enjoyed a nice tourist experience. I admit that I caught myself daydreaming about commuting that easily to and from work. But then reality set in, and I couldn’t help thinking, “how often would I really ride it?” The answer? At the moment, not very often — it just doesn’t go anyplace too near where I go.

As we cruised along I imagined how many small retailers near each stop are seeing a totally new influx of shoppers, and how more small businesses will want to seek locations near the rail stops — new economic development! Small, granted, but as the rail system expands, more and better opportunities for growth will arise.

Reading this morning’s paper reinforced this notion: a plan to run the system from downtown Phoenix to Glendale’s Arizona Sports Complex on the west side. This plan would not only generate a great tourist draw (catching Coyotes or Cardinals games without driving from the East Valley), but also create a new, cost-effective commuting opportunity.

It’s much more than just a daydream. It means new high-end offices, specialty retail stores, and even new plants at select locations along the light rail route; real economic development representing new jobs, capital investment, cleaner air, and happier commuters! OK, I’m sold — all aboard!!

What do you think about the Phoenix Metro Light Rail? We’d love to hear your personal experiences.

Good Morning Friends! I have had the opportunity to research and tour some very large available industrial sites and buildings during my recent trips. Availability is certainly a sign of the times as companies downsize and shed unneeded inventory. The available space should also be looked at as an opportunity to help attract future expansions and locations. But space alone is not enough to attract new projects.

Due to large scale layoffs and massive unemployment, one would assume that the skills are available for any future location/expansion. But are the skills available for the businesses of the future? Many occupations are now gone, particularly in many manufacturing sectors such as traditional automotive. These sectors will be replaced with new emerging ones such as wind energy, solar, biotech, biofuels and many that have not even been thought of yet.

The key here is for each region to carefully determine the emerging target industries that are right for them by matching their strengths with the site selection needs of the emerging business. The most important criteria will be skill needs. We know that traditional automotive jobs have transferable skill sets to those needed in some of the energy categories such as solar, wind power and electric vehicles.

These workforce specifics need to be documented so that the emerging prospects, that are soon to be looking, understand that your community has the skill sets that can be trained into their occupation needs. If you can complement this with details on available industrial space that can be converted to the prospects needs, you will have a nice “leg up” on the competition. Happy Prospecting! Deane

Hello All! I attended the annual Arizona Association of Economic Development (AAED) legislative luncheon today. Economic development professionals were pushing a clear message to attending state legislators: Support economic development initiatives to create new jobs and tax base, which in the long run will help the state’s $1.6 billion deficit.

It’s a no-brainer, right — Economic Development 101! We have to keep marketing hard now during the recession in order to capture our share of a dwindling supply of new job creating location projects.

One of the few project growth areas now is solar manufacturing. However, AZ is getting its “clock cleaned” here by competing states such as NM, Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon. A perfect example is the German-based Schott Manufacturing which is locating a solar panel plant in Albuquerque, NM with over 1,000 high-wage jobs. One clear reason: those states have attractive solar-oriented incentive programs in place.

AZ has an attractive solar tax credit incentive bill pending, SB1403. The program is revenue-positive and could potentially create over 5,000 high-end solar jobs!

Yet, unbelievably, I heard arguments against it today. This is based on the assumption that companies awarded credits could sell them for profit (heaven forbid), and somehow Arizonans would suffer by the loss of tax revenues.

Let me clue you in, Mr. Legistator, we taxpayers will suffer more if thousands of new high-wage jobs and tens of millions of dollars in capital investment head for our competing states. By the way, AZ finished well out of the running for the Schott project.

Not giving up tax credits could mean no locations, which mean no new taxes and no new jobs! Mr. Legistator, please be forward thinking and pass SB 1403! We need the jobs and the tax base!! Regards, Deane

Evening Friends! We are free to develop — a common sense notion that seems so simple, yet we hesitate. Economic development is mired in this messy recession fueled by volumes of bad news (just heard on the news: with the economy in freefall, crime is rising…). Bad news seems to fuel even greater fear.

Bad news aside, I just watched Ken Burns’ American Stories, the History of the Statue of Liberty on PBS. It is an inspirational story of strength and determination. It documents America’s immigration history, an even more inspirational saga of freedom (…give us your tired…).

Grasp the spirit of strength and determination, and yes, freedom! Look at this economic stimulus package as an opportunity. It is far from perfect but offers tremendous avenues toward job creation: transportation infrastructure, job training, R&D investment, green technology (solar, wind, biofuels), research parks, etc, etc!

Grasp it, Plan it…Develop…Freedom! Have a great week! Deane