Anonymous Comments

I got another anonymous diatribe last night, on
Friday evening, April 17th, from someone who
apparently has nothing better to do with a
Friday evening. It was a local politico
sock-puppet expounding all the great things
achieved by our illustrious Economic Development
Corporation. I can see where some people might
be convinced that all is marvelous in Iron
County, Michigan, but those folks are easily
misled.

One of my complaints about the Iron County EDC
has been the mission statement.

"To implement strategies that will increase job
opportunity, tax base and quality of life within
the county of Iron."

If the mission statement stuck to "increasing job
opportunities for our residents" I'd be a whole
lot happier. An analysis of the other segments of
the existing mission statement yields some not-so-
very-nice stuff.

First we need to recognize that the Iron County
EDC is 100% government funded, so whatever the EDC
does is the county government doing it. Looking at
what they do to increase the tax base, what we see
is programs that take state money and spend it
locally in order to increase property values in
order to collect more in property taxes. When a
business person improves the facade on their
building, does that improve their sales and profit
pictures? Not when nothing else happens! In fact
a nice looking up to date building is less apt to
draw tourist dollars than a somewhat run down one.

Tourists generally live in regions where all the
buildings they see daily are attractive and up to date.
Why would they come to Iron County to experience the
same things they already have at home? What do we have
that's unique enough to be worth visiting?

The last part of the mission statement is strictly
none of the government's business in the first place.
Where does Iron County get off improving the quality
of life anyway? That's never an appropriate expenditure
of our tax dollars.

Iron County needs only one thing that will accomplish
the entire mission statement, and that is good paying
jobs. Not minimum wage stuff and part time work like
the Call Center, but real, productive jobs paying at
least $50,000 a year with the usual (for the rest of
the USA) fringe benefits. Increased property values
and an improved quality of life will follow naturally.

And contrary to the opinion of our local Economic
Developer, those jobs don't even need to be inside
Iron County! Anywhere that our residents are willing
to commute to a job works just fine. After Niagara
Mill closed it was discovered that about half the
employees live in Dickinson County, and some live
in Florence County. Mrs. Melchiori's stated view
that our economy isn't regional is severely myopic.

As I read down the list that the Julie Melchiori
sock-puppet typed in as an anonymous comment, all
I see is the repetition of the same old story about
all the busy work that the Iron County EDC has
engaged in, while there's no mention of even a
single job that's been created in recent times.

Remember the "Where's the Beef?" commercials on TV
a few years back? I see EDC spending its budget on
all sorts of things, but:

Where's the jobs?

Bill Vajk
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