Economic Development Department Needs To Go

The Economic Development Department is one of those feel-good bureaucracies that have exploded in municipal popularity over the last decade.  Somehow, city and state governments got along just fine without such high-sounding agencies for centuries, but now the departments have risen in importance to where you're more likely to find a town without a head of street repair than without an Economic Development Director.

It was a cushy job back when the economy was booming.  It was easy to claim economic success when someone could spill a drink, incorporate, then start earning a profit in the thrilling new drink-spilling industry. 

In 2006, Mesquite was seeing about two new business ribbon-cuttings every week.

Around that same time, the city saw its three biggest non-casino employers come to town: the Do It Best distribution center, Mesa View Regional Hospital, and Sun City.  Former mayor Bill Nicholes could be thanked for Do It Best and Sun City, while a collection of dedicated private citizens were mostly responsible for wooing the hospital here.

Then the bottom fell out of the national economy.

Suddenly, communities were depending on their Economic Development Departments to put on their red capes with the big "S" on the back and come to the rescue.

From coast to coast, those bogus bureaucracies were exposed for what they were - useless patronage positions filled with unqualified pencil pushers who had less business sense than your average salad bowl.

It isn't really the fault of the bureaucrat who happened to be sitting in the EDD seat when the music stopped.  It's a department that, like most things which start out as a good idea by a government, is simply an incompatible concept.

Governments by nature and design are charged with providing certain community services like roads, and protecting the public.  Throughout the centuries, most governments knew that their job occasionally included protecting the citizens from businesses, which is why they formulated so many laws and rules inhibiting commerce.

Then, in the last decade, governments started reversing engines and appointing EDD heads to help promote business in their communities.  Aside from the gearbox damage caused by slamming such a large institution into reverse, it also provided comedic irony that only the governments failed to see - hiring bureaucrats who are gifted at developing forms in triplicate, who excel at the minutiae of policy and procedure, who have spent entire careers in the field of "No!", and who have zero experience in creating a business from scratch or fathoming the personal risks of entrepreneurship, now tasked with helping lure and start new businesses.

It would be like hiring me to serve as a city's chief surgeon.  The skill set simply isn't there.

Today there is a move afoot by a group of local private citizens to try something different.  The group is suggesting that the city eliminate the department and outsource the duties of enticing news businesses and assisting existing businesses to a private agency like the Mesquite Community Development Corporation.  The MCDC is a group that was formed a couple of years ago by local business people, folks who actually know how to start and run a business.

This idea warrants some attention.

In most communities, the Chamber of Commerce would also be a likely candidate for helping bring in new business.  Unfortunately, in Mesquite that organization has been little more than a dysfunctional social club.  In fact, even the biggest business and employer in the city, the former Black gaming, quit the Chamber this year.

Mesquite's current EDD is a train wreck, and has been for some time.

Aside from the fact that it has been completely impotent in bringing new industry to town, it has also been involved in some of the city's biggest scandals.

The head of the EDD was elbow deep in the Desert Falls debacle, a failure which would have resulted in someone losing their job had they worked for a real business.  In fact, after it was discovered that someone in the city allowed the Desert Falls developers to pay a large deposit with a post-dated and unfunded check, some might even say a criminal investigation was warranted.  Instead, the EDD was expanded and the head of the department was given more power and authority.  They also took one of the brightest stars in the city government stable, Aaron Baker, and made him the EDD head's underling.  It's a waste of great talent.

Mesquite's Economic Development Department has also been a waste of time and money.  Their big claim to fame?  The "Mesquite Means Business" website.  The city been overpaying thousands of dollars for the site's design and hosting.  Also, there are pinatas that get more hits than this pitiful little slice of the internet. 

For a while, the city claimed it was going to jump on the alternative energy bandwagon and bring in purveyors of solar power, solar panels, and wind technology.  Today, Mesquite is trailing such mega-municipalities as Boulder City and Ivanpah.  Once again our inability to become a player in this realm, despite Mesquite's perfect climate and geography for such facilities, is a failure of the EDD.

Also, for years the city has had the well-earned reputation of being anti-business, with increases to its business license fees, its rigorous licensing process with 13-page applications, and its business-unfriendly sign ordinances and zoning.  Where was the EDD in all that?

The one good thing to come out of that department was an impressive video about Mesquite's golf facilities, and to a lesser degree, our casinos.  However, the behind-the-scenes truth is that the video was the brainchild of a group of forward-thinking golfers and businessmen who brought the idea to the city, and also helped fund it.  Which is more evidence that a privatized EDD makes sense.  Also, that video has been squandered because the city's EDD simply doesn't know how to market and promote it, or the city.  The proof?  Where is the latest Do It Best or Sun City?  The city owns a ton of land, and has even given it away in the past.  How incompetent is an agency that can't even bring a new industry to town with free land to offer?

The Mesquite Economic Development Department needs to be disbanded.  In these lean times of cutbacks, layoffs, and budget shortfalls, the last thing a small municipality needs is an expensive, underperforming agency.  Especially when the duties could better be handled by people who actually know what they're doing.

Editor's Note - After this story was written, MesquiteCitizen.com broke the story that Economic Development Director Bryan Dangerfield will be taking over for Rich Bohne, who is leaving as the head of the city's Athletic and Leisure Department.  Moving a lousy director with questionable competence from one city department to another isn't exactly what we had in mind.  It also begs the question - how does the city make that decision without opening the position to a hiring process?  It appears good old boy, backroom dealing is back at City Hall.