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EVER-READY GLASS SALES REPS Finance and Accounting FLOWERS, RIEGER & ASSOCIATES TAX STAFF OpinionTREO's economic blueprint is here; now, who's gonna make it happen?
A strong, clear visionArizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.08.2007
Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities Inc., or TREO, installed a door of opportunity late last month. It is up to our community to open it and walk through.
About 500 people who were eager, perhaps anxious, for a glimpse of the community's economic future gathered March 28 at the Fox Theatre Downtown. The crowd enthusiastically grasped the design concept of "Securing Our Future Now: An Economic Blueprint for the Tucson Region." The vision is a community with high-paying jobs, plenty of opportunities for fresh college graduates and young professionals, improved education and a vital urban center.
A lack of specific steps
The word "blueprint" in the title must be viewed in a broad sense, as a guide or plan of action, not a detailed technical drawing.
The blueprint process began in September, directed by a 46-member steering committee that was headed by local attorney Larry Hecker. Jim McGraw of KMK Consulting Co., an Ohio-based consultant who's worked with more than 20 cities, evaluated Tucson's economic status and recommended strategies. The blueprint was funded by a $250,000 donation from Tucson Electric Power Co.
The centerpiece of the TREO plan is five interlocking cogwheels in an economic machine: high-skilled, high-wage jobs; educational excellence; urban renaissance; livable communities; and collaborative governance. The blueprint also includes an annual economic "report card" to hold TREO and the community accountable for economic progress.
About 6,000 people from our community were involved in the development of the blueprint through surveys and focus groups.
When we heard the term "blueprint" months ago, we expected the result to be a complex, detailed "how to build an economy" report.
Hecker and Joe Snell, TREO president and chief executive, told us last week that the final product looks different than originally envisioned because the TREO crew realized that the complexity of the issues made including implementation steps impossible.
In addition, essentially assigning others the responsibility would never work in our community of independent spirits.
Every community needs a vision statement such as the blueprint. The strengths of the TREO report are its clear, strong vision for the community and the depth and amount of data, which gives it a firm foundation. Its weakness is the lack of specific, pragmatic plans to turn data and vision into reality.
Snell says TREO will be the catalyst and that it is working on creating "mechanisms" to get business and industry, nonprofit groups and government involved in developing the implementation steps.
Those mechanisms and clear, make-it-happen plans need to begin immediately.
Collaboration, not consensus
The TREO blueprint puts into writing what our community has been talking about for decades. In an Oct. 30, 1977, Star editorial discussing IBM's move to Tucson and our community's move into the "big leagues" of attracting industry, we said, "This requires a plan for land use, transportation and necessary facilities."
Sounds similar to what's mentioned in the TREO blueprint. We say this to emphasize that our community needs to seize this opportunity finally and to get it right.
The TREO plan fully embraces the cluster strategy to attract high-skilled and high-wage jobs. Clusters are complementary firms that can drive a regional economy. TREO has narrowed its focus to 10 such clusters for our area.
Importantly, TREO is not selling Tucson as a low-wage town, a criticism of economic-development groups of the past.
We are encouraged by TREO's recognition that Downtown is essential to economic development and the acknowledgement that young, skilled workers enjoy urban living and want entertainment options.
Among its recommendations, TREO calls for the creation of a Downtown development group to accelerate plans and make recommendations to the Tucson City Council. TREO wants to maximize the funds for developing Downtown through the tax increment financing, or TIF.
At present, several narrow focus groups and businesses with overlapping interests and divergent plans for Downtown don't seem to have a common goal or vision. For the TREO-inspired group to work, all involved need to check their egos and agendas at the door.
Snell and Hecker are encouraged that this type of coordinated, inclusive effort can and will happen. They say that Tucson is moving from a 100 percent consensus town to a collaborative town.
Citing the Regional Transportation Authority plan as an example of the collaborative approach, Hecker says that not everyone got everything he or she wanted, but it was a balanced plan from which everyone will share benefits. The same can happen with economic development, he says.
We hope he's right.
Awaiting a big announcement
Some other encouraging signs from the TREO report and from talking to Hecker and Snell are efforts to secure foreign direct investment and positioning our area to be further involved in international trade, especially with Europe and Japan.
And importantly, TREO is emphasizing not allowing our economy to become dependent on one company or market segment. Many remember the layoffs and employment spikes of copper mines and Hughes Aircraft Co. a few decades ago that made our economy a roller coaster.
The accountability aspect of the blueprint — the report card — is welcome in concept. However, the examples listed — such as "income distribution" and "changes in SAT scores and dropout rates" — are imprecise and take a giant leap from the broad concepts presented in the five thrust areas. The to-be-developed implementation plans must include specific measures.
Building trust with public officials — elected officials and bureaucrats — and the private sector is essential to our economic well-being. During the blueprint presentation last month, you could feel the frustration when the audience burst into applause after Rick Myers, chief operating officer of Bourn Partners who was chairman of the pro-RTA plan committee, talked about the necessity to "cut the red tape" and improve government efficiency.
Several of the sweeping goals set out in the blueprint — such as developing an "education first" culture and addressing livable-community issues such as water and health care — require thoughtful, long-term solutions that are not going to be created with a couple of PowerPoint presentations.
Hecker and Snell realize this and say these are among the issues that will be discussed at the Tucson Regional Town Hall in early May, which should lead to action steps.
While this isn't in the blueprint, we'd like a big win for TREO. The organization has had successes, such as the October 2005 Pella Corp. announcement of a manufacturing plant employing 450 in Tucson and June's announcement that Conservas La Costeña, a major Mexican food company, bought the idle Slim-Fast plant. It is renovating the facility.
Call us selfish, but we'd like to hear a major announcement.
Snell emphasizes that the economy won't be switched in 12 months; however, the blueprint reflects a vision and promise for our region.
We hope names of groups will soon be attached to the blueprint's strategies and action steps created. Our community deserves nothing less.
See related editorial on the Downtown arena / H2
See related guest opinion on the Tucson Regional Town Hall / H3
See related guest opinion on the TREO blueprint / Tuesday, Op-Ed
Editorial Page Editor Ann Brown worked for the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce in the 1980s and was on the Mayor's Task Force on Economic Development in 1988-89. E-mail her at annbrown@azstarnet.com.
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