I’ve been loathe to post lately as I just seem to cover the same old ground, maybe with a twist and turn here-and-there, but largely,  challenging the competing philosophies — the earth is  flat, the sun orbits the earth and a good blood letting cures all ills– grows tedious at best. And all to no apparent avail.

Let me quickly comment on a few items to illustrate this point:

-Us and Them: The Them plaguing our city keeps growing: first, it’s “those people” or “the Spanish”; then it’s the out-of-town landlords, who not only must be registered, but who apparently, as landlords, are one step shy of felons; then it’s the Buddhists, yes even the Buddhists, apparently merit a suspicious eye.  Why we would have a shining city in the valley if not for Them. It certainly it is not Us: Not me, Couldn’t be me, Naw not me.

-Burning Desires: With every fire, we can now witness the sideshow on infrastructure and hydrants with the usual wails at the sad state of our infrastructure from the very same chorus who wails at any public spending and tax increase. For the umpteenth time, tell me how you will fund infrastructure with no increase in public spending and tax increase? Oh right, the landfill: that way we bond the landfill which will generate so much money that we can then bond for the infrastructure which will generate even  more money… Panzi on the Mohawk…

- The Horror: With the city taking a parking lot off the auction block to make green space on the East End, I hope we’re not setting a precedent to consider alternate uses for parking lots. After all, the engine of our economy centers around the creation of parking lots and the paving of green space.

-Marketability Fail: I found this line (here) from the story on our two industrial parks to be quite interesting: Local officials believe that lack of success may be attributable to some significant differences between the two parks, the biggest of which is the amount of available land for development. Ken Rose, head of the county’s Department of Economic Development and Planning and administrative director of the Montgomery County Industrial Development Agency, developer of both parks, said the Glen park was specifically developed for smaller projects, while Florida was meant for larger facilities.

Let’s noodle the statement above a bit: the lack of success may be due to the amount of land for development. How do you reconcile the statement above with the following: 1) How do you market smaller sites such as those in the city for industrial development when a similar park in Glen has failed to garner tenants? 2) How does the county, per the current agreement with AIDA  under ‘shared services’, steer development to the city versus the Glen site? Is there not some inherent competition between the sites? 3) How do we drive growth of service and professional businesses who do not require land for development? Clearly, no entity or strategy has existed or exists for this market. I’m utterly flummoxed.

-Anonymity Rocks: Funny how Michael Lazarou embraces anonymity and parody when it suits him (here).  I seem to recall a few of his columns railing against anonymous bloggers– that would be me– and posters as scourges on our local media and community along with contempt for parody by the lowly denizens of the digital space. But of course, anonymity in his skilled hands as a columnist and satirist are as stone to a sculptor and what is a lowly craft to us, in his hands, becomes nothing short of a noble art.

So this what I mean in my preamble above: my blogging feels like a journey to find the end point on a circle.

Once again I’m at a loss to explain how we expect economic development to occur in the city. From the Recorder (here):

“I think eventually this is the beginning of the end of AIDA, because they don’t have enough land to develop on,” he said. “It seems like a natural thing.”

Baia, who said the county can do a better job at handling the city’s economic development and for less money than AIDA, said the county’s Economic Development/Planning Committee will discuss the proposal on July 13.

Here’s where I’m struggling to keep up: AIDA is shutting down because they do not have enough land to develop on. Let’s follow what this means.

This suggests that AIDA sees itself unable to achieve any economic development without land to develop. So if you want to understand why we cannot draw any service or technology industries here, you see the answer: the agency presumably tasked with bringing about such development by the local media,  pundits and locals sees itself unable to do so unless it has a parcel.  So if you are a new or existing business with no need for land, apparently AIDA does not see it in its mission or strategy to help you.  This is an astounding revelation; we literally have not a single entity working to drive growth in the city.

But here is where it gets even more confusing: if AIDA does not have land now in the city and apparently sees itself as only able to develop given land, the only available land to be developed then naturally follows must be outside the city. I assume the ‘A’ in ‘AIDA” still stands for Amsterdam so I’m not sure how this paradox works itself out that we have an agency who can only drive economic development with an asset that it cannot acquire in a location at which it cannot operate.

The bottom line still remains: how are we going to drive growth to the city? I see nothing in this new arrangement that even gets close to addressing that issue.

Before I lay out my differences with this strategy and thinking, let me admit an agreement on one thing: the notion of  ’one-stop’ shopping. From a customer perpective, in this case a prospective business, dealing with one entity should simplify the process and avoid needless ping-pong of bouncing from agency to agency. However, this client-serving or I daresay, marketing and sales driven approach, has never been the true reason to pursue these arrangements.

Invariably the driving forces continue to claim we are  ’saving money’ as part of the shared services bandwagon; once again, I don’t get it.

If you are going to save money, typically you look at the tradeoff between the product or service and the cost. As someone who spends a lot of time painting and repainting his house, I like to use the example of buying paint. I can buy very inexpensive paint that takes several coats to hide, that smells terribly and that has a limited range of color choices. Or I can spend more and get paint that covers in one coat, smells much less and gives me a full palette of colors. In my calculations, I’m not ‘saving money’ at all given the first option. To claim that I’m saving money by paying less per gallon of paint misses the additional costs and benefits of the more expensive can.

Somehow this simple economic decision making we casually and readily apply in most purchasing decisions gets utterly discarded in the discussion of economic development. Do we really save money by having an agency which regards itself as a land development agency? Do we save money by ignoring any initiatives to attract the entrepreneur and self-employed in service and especially technology sectors? Do we save money relegating our interests to an entity tasked with county-wide development versus city-focused development?

On a more specific point, I find it enlightening to ask for specific numbers on number of jobs created by AIDA over the past 5 to 10 years. No one can answer the question. So let me now ask under this new agreement, what are the numbers nee metrics to evaluate what return we are getting on our spend: are we measuring in jobs created, marketing and sales impressions, brand recognition, etc. Exactly what have we been getting and what will we be getting. In other words, what are the revenue drivers with this initiative. Once again, it’s all expense, no revenue. Or “all hat, no cattle”.

I don’t think this saves money; we’re buying less expensive paint and like cheap paint, we’ll see the peels and cracks in the strategy quite soon and then realize we saved nothing at all; we actually just spent a lot more. And then another decade from now, we’ll scratch our heads as to why we’re not seeing the fruits of economic development in the city. Maybe then we can tally the missed revenue against our lowered expenses.

A few comments on things harshing my mellow this week:

– AIDA: Just as I predicted in my post a few days ago, the champions of fiscal responsibility continue to make a mockery of economic development. I guess my definition of fiscal responsibility includes such quaint notions as transparency, accountability and mission. Silly me. If anyone still believes AIDA as the champion of marketing the city, your KoolAid is strong.

–Kabuki: While the local buzz centers on the city budget with a 3% tax hike , not a peep on the 3.55% city tax hike in proposed school budget. As the school budget is twice the size of the city budget, it should come as no surprise that we focus 100 times the effort on the budget that is 2 times smaller than the other.  I’m disappointed at the lack of hand wringing and wailing concerning seniors on fixed budgets so impacted by the city budget but apparently a higher levy by the school district warrants no such thing.  Apparently the seniors on fixed income are too busy on their golf game to notice.

But here is the kicker in the school budget: if the budget does not pass, the board will appropriate less of the fund balance to the budget so the tax rate will actually increase more if the budget is voted down. I suppose this is more “fiscal responsibility”. In finance terms, the proper term would be “poison pill”.

–Historic Devastation: A h/t to Jerry Skrocki for sending a map of the proposed zoning districts (here). What utterly harshes my mellow is the designation of what areas are the ‘Historic District’. To be clear, this is not a criticism of the zoning committee; it is the harsh reality that as a city that just celebrated its 125 year anniversary, we have utterly destroyed the historic fabric of our city.

My favorite meme in the world, “fiscal responsibility”, (here):

AIDA members have called the decision one of fiscal responsibility. The review of their insurance services contract, for example, recently realized nearly $3,000 in savings.

Truly impressive, $3K in savings. Clearly AIDA is on the march with economic development not by job creation or economic development but through $3k in savings. Awesome.

And then this:

“We won’t necessarily take the lowest bid,” said AIDA Executive Director Frank Valiante. “We’re going to take the one we think is the best deal, the best bang for our buck, the best background … we’re going to look at a lot of things.”

Following initial bid review by AIDA’s Personnel Committee, Valiante was instructed to go through the proposals with a fine-tooth comb and do calculations in order to compare them.

Which loosely translates into: “We know who we want, we just need to craft an argument to reach the predetermined conclusion.”

Now that’s fiscal responsibility.

Boy, AIDA sure is fiscally responsible(here):

While Zabawsky has eyed some grants that could be useful with the project, most would have to wait until next year, given that the city is currently without a grant writer. The Amsterdam Industrial Development Agency, which retroactively ended its contract with Zabawsky for grant-writing services in January, will awarding contracts based on requests for proposals next month.

“All the big grants [this year] that could really impact this kind of stuff has really gone by the wayside,” said Zabawsky.

See kids, fiscal responsibility is never, ever about revenue and top-line, it’s just about cutting expenses. So if you cut a few thousand in insurance expenses like AIDA recently did, that’s fiscal responsibility and truly awesome. To let tens and hundreds of thousands in possible grants go by the wayside, that’s something else entirely. Hint: it starts with an ‘F’ like ‘Fiscal’ but the last word is ‘Unbelievable’.  And yet, the talking point makes its way unchallenged in every story on AIDA. How you can accept fiscal responsibility that ignores any management of the revenue side or abdication of strategy and mission simply amazes me.

And what’s up with this:

“It may be more than just city-owned buildings for that neighborhood,” said Zabawsky. “It may be kind of a strategy to clean up that neighborhood.”

That strategy could include demolition, rehabilitation, marketing or a combination of those efforts.

Marketing?!  That’s just crazy to think about marketing anything in the city. Let’s simply accept that ‘marketing’ is not something we do in this city. Ever.

Local Restaurateur Tony Centi garners some well earned recognition (here).

The Recorder opines on the AIDA board shakeup(here). The political tea leaves are easy to read on this one.

A second op-ed on the capital campaign for the Mohawks (here).  Here is what I find intriguing on the Mohawks success: why is it working? Or let me ask it in a snarkier way, you mean retail and commercial development is not the only engine in a local economy? Whodathunk!

An informative story in the Leader Herald on the governors budget, union negotiating power and local school district responses (here).

The Leader Herald opines against the sales tax increase (here).