Strategic Initiatives involves several different focus areas in the Town. It was newly created in February and houses Economic Development and Tourism, Intergovernmental Affairs, Special Events, Communications and Marketing, Strategic Planning, Heritage, Arts and Culture, and Performance Management. PHEW!
Josh Wright is the director and he has the special events coordinator, the public information officer and soon to have a graphic designer and analyst all under his department and does all of those jobs! It is pretty impressive!
We started the day at the Kino Pima County One Stop Center that is down on Ajo. This is a resource for people who have either been laid off or are trying to get a new job. They have classes teaching resume building and other general skills including getting a GED. We toured and saw the classrooms, computers and the books of job descriptions, and the people that work with DES to get people their unemployment benefits, or to help them understand their benefits. These resources are two tiered, there are core services that are just for looking up jobs on the computer or resume review, but then they also have a program where it teaches people essential skills for getting and keeping a job. This are services provided for free, and in some cases allows the clients to keep their unemployment benefits while they are getting this training.If you or someone you care about needs these services, check out their website.
The rest of the day I spent with Josh and Adelina Martin, the special events coordinator. Josh and I talked a lot about how the Town has decided to tackle economic growth. The Town focuses on what is termed the “Garden Method,” which means that they are fostering the relationships that currently exist rather than trying to go out and find new businesses. The Town is totally focused on how to keep the businesses that are currently located in Marana, and the best way for them to grow. The goal is these large corporations stay in the Town and keep providing jobs and revenues. The feeling I got today was not really focused on revenues, rather the quality of life. Now, revenues are obviously important, but the driver for economic growth is more closely tied to the quality of life the Town can provide the employees of these large companies. Think about it…..where would you locate your business? In a place that has great economic incentives or a place that has great schools for your kids? These are the decisions that Josh tries to help the businesses make, and the marketing for the Town is much more focused on the “soft” things rather than money.
Marana is the most business friendly jurisdiction I have ever been around! They really want to make the Town a destination for international headquarters. This is really important since NERD ALERT! Businesses bring in homes and people; those people in turn buy homes in the Town and spend money in the Town thus driving up revenues. What I thought was really cool, was the economic incentives are not great, but they are stipulations on what some of those monies can be used for. The Sargent project, for example, had to put their incentive monies into programs that provided internships for local students, or training for their employees, and even for landscaping making I-10 look more presentable. These are ways that these businesses are providing additional benefits to the community in other ways, which is highly innovative and makes the Town much more sustainable.
The end of the day I spent some time with Adelina Martin, and was talked about several of the events that are coming up. Here is a link to the events calendar. There is something most nights and the Star Spangled Spectacular is coming up on July 4! There is so much that goes into planning these huge events, sometimes 800 people come!, and she is the guru when doing anything. The biggest plus is that most of these events are funded through other sources and sponsors rather than the taxpayer dollars. Although, these events are going to be super cool I bet people would be willing to pay for them!Keep your eyes peeled for the Founder's Day Celebration and the Holiday Tree Lighting later this year!
Tomorrow I am off to the Chamber of Commerce, and know that I have all this development knowledge I can’t wait to see how they fit into the whole picture! Clearly, I am huge dork!
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