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Subject: Economic Development Author: Ned Depew [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 09:57:59 11/03/05 Thu One of the most complicated issues facing Hudson (and the County) is economic developement. Through nothing but dumb luck (where we happen to be located, our legacy of well-preserved architecture, the relative inexpensiveness of property compared to NYC and southern Counties, etc.) we have experienced a boom here in the last decade - but much of the investment has been in relatively short-term jobs in the building trades, real-estate, and related areas. Meanwhile, our economic developement agencies have been doing exactly nothing (that I can see - and I have looked) to prepare us for the tapering off of that boom. One area where I agree with most "SLC Supporters" - and most FoH supporters as well - is that the region needs more secure, permanent, well-paying employment that offers a range of jobs from low-skilled and entry level to high-skilled. We have a handful of employers that offer both entry level jobs and opportunities for advancement within the companies - but we need more. We are strategically located - two to three hours from Boston and New York, five hours from Montreal, less than an hour from Albany. We have a beautifully integrated work-force ranging from low-skilled laborers to highly-trained professionals in many special fields. We have a beautiful environment, with lots of available sites for businesses including tax-incentives and other advantages. We have Empire Zone designation, to offer additional advantages to start-up or relocating businesses. We have (comparatively, in this time of "irrational exuberance") a reasonably wide-open housing market allowing employees making a decent wage to live comfortably. So why has our economic development been so sluggish? What are our well-paid workers in the HDC and the other alphabet of "development agencies" been doing with all that money we pay them? Have they produced ANY jobs - other than for themselves and the Mayor's and Board of Supervisors Chairman's cronies? A new Mayor MUST hold the agencies responsible for the money we are spending on them. If they can't produce results, they should be scrapped and some new office that will get things done should be opened. We'd be better off spending that money directly on our own people than on "professional" level salaries for people who can't get the job of attracting companies and new employment to our region done. Membership in the HDC should be reopened to the general public - as it used to be before Scalera - and the public should sit on the board, overseeing the process and demanding results. Hudson (and Columbia County) has a lot of advantages to offer. If businesses are not accepting that offer, it is only because it is not being marketed correctly and aggressively enough to make our case as strongly as it needs to be made. We need to know what the "developement agencies" do all day, what they spend our money on, and why we have nothing to show for all that money and effort. If they want to argue that there are factors that make real economic developement in the region "impossible" we need to hear that. But we all know that isn't the case. So let's find out what they are doing with our taxpayer dollars, and let's insist that they produce results or make way for those who can. Dick Tracy and the Row B candidates have promised an aggressive, open stance toward economic developement, and the citizens of Hudson deserve it. The Scaleranetti campaign offers "business as ususal." How much more of that can we survive? [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[> Subject: Re: Economic Development Author: Gene [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 08:41:08 11/04/05 Fri As was stated on the local news channel the other nite, North Carolina has the most skilled workers in the country, all of which have located from somewhere else. Can you offer some solutions on how we are to attract these skilled workers back to Columbia County. It sure won't happen with the future prospects of employment in the county with low paying, no benefit jobs which are here now. In your eagerness to chase SLC from the area you have now effectively closed the door on any other MAJOR business from wanting to relocate here due to the Nimbism attitude displayed by you and others in your self serving interests to protect us from your portended boogieman of environmental hazards. As more and more things dry up it will be interesting to see who will now pick up the tab for all of the expenses created by the self servers.

[> [> Subject: Re: Economic Development Author: Ned Depew [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 10:34:38 11/05/05 Sat Gene - North Carolina is an active participant in "the race to the bottom." By lax standards for everything from worker safety to environmental responsibility and by making unionzation nearly impossible, the state has managed to supress wages and the costs of doing business (in the short run - the long term costs of this policy will be paid for by future generations). Businesses have flocked there in droves to maximize profits on the backs of citizens and workers - and workers have moved there because they need to eat, no matter how comparatively low their standard of living may be. That is a model for the downfall of the US economy - not prosperity and positive development. Rejecting SLC's poorly-planned, out-of-scale, selfish and costly (in terms of health and quality of life) proposal didn't "close the door" on anything. Quite the contrary, it opened the door to planning for "smart-growth" and showed the need for Hudson to be active in attracting and developing new businesses rather than waiting passively for whomever comes along to try to exploit our resources for their own profit. The planned expansion of H.A.V.E. - a locally-grown, sustainable, clean business that has grown to employ more than 75 workers, many in well-paying, skilled jobs - that was threatened by the SLC proposal will now presumably go ahead. Other "smarth-growth" businesses will be able to see our region's positive attitude and commitment to toward their work and not have to worry about relocating in an area that will subsequently allow dirty, heavy-industrial development (sort of like buying a house lot across from a pristine 500 acre farm, only to have the farm developed into an oil refinery!) Just as you have a right to choose your neighborhood and develop such tools as zoning and public regulation (speed limits, regulations on commercial zoning, bars and X-rated businesses, for instance) to keep your family safe and preserve the quality of life you desire, so Hudson has the right to make choices - which has had important consequences. Even Dan Grandinetti in his platform statement embraces "smart-growth," a term with which he would probably not be familar if it weren't for the SLC fight. Once again it seems all you want to do is complain, without looking to the future to see what good can be made of the present situation. Even if the rejection of SLC (a decision made by the NY Department of State - not by me or Sam Pratt or FoH) were a bad thing, it is still the reality we face and it is a waste of our time and energy to endlessly whine about it instead of working on alternative ways of achieving our goals of prosperity and improvement for our City.