The Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered Really Cool Foods up to $3.05 million in performance-based tax credits, up to $165,000 in training grants and will provide Cambridge City officials with a $200,000 grant to assist in off-site infrastructure improvements needed for the project. Wayne County officials offered the company 50 acres of land, $165,000 in grants and a 10-year property tax abatement.

The facility opened in October of 2008 with 250 of the projected 1,000 jobs to start, and over the last few years the company has had numerous challenges reaching initially estimated milestones of investment and jobs created.

Today, the company told workers who showed up for their morning shift that the facility was closing, and in a press release sent after 9 AM, announced the company is shutting down.

A couple of initial thoughts and questions about this unfortunate announcement:

First, if the reports are true, what a crummy way to treat your employees.  Even if there had been layoffs in recent years and even if the economy is bad, short of natural disaster I don’t think there’s ever a good reason to have an entire workforce find out about the end of the company when they show up for work that day.  (Not to mention the timing of right when the weather turns really cold, right before the holidays, etc.) Yes, it’s harder and maybe even risky to share the news in advance, but I think employees deserve the respect of being a part of that conversation well before the rest of the world knows.

Second, I’m sure there might be a lot of finger pointing going on around this announcement, but it really is important to investigate why a company so well received in our area and so generously supported by taxpayer dollars has to close after only three years in operation.  Yes, the economy is bad, but it was bad three years ago too.  Is this a case of bad planning, excessive optimism and hype, poor management, problems with the location…what caused this, and how can we stop it from happening again (especially on the taxpayer dime)?

Governor Mitch Daniels welcomes Really Cool Foods to Indiana

Speaking of the taxpayer-funded incentives, the local Economic Development Corporation likes to talk about the role of clawback terms in their offers to businesses wanting to locate here.  Does such a clause allowing us to recoup these subsidizations exist in this case, and are they “on it” when it comes to being a registered creditor for any sale of assets or bankruptcy proceedings?  What percent of lost revenue and outright grants does Wayne County and the state of Indiana stand to get back?  What will we do differently next time in vetting a potential recipient?

Lastly, Really Cool Foods has often been cited in our region as a success story of the conventional model of economic development, using taxpayer dollars to sell the area to large employers in hopes of landing significant long-term investment in the community.  More and more, the evidence points to this as an outdated and unsustainable model, and when the success stories turn into nightmares, we have to pay attention to that.  I personally hope we turn toward job creation at a more human scale, but whatever we do, we need a model that’s sustainable when you look at the big picture – global economic trends, fuel costs, climate change, etc. – and not just what makes for a good headline over one, three or five years.

My heart goes out to everyone involved with Really Cool Foods – especially the workers and their families but even the people who worked hard to bring them here in the first place and the management who had to wrestle with a foundering enterprise along the way.

But one way to honor their pain and misfortune is to make sure it’s not repeated in the future, and that we find ways to be better stewards of the people and resources in our region.

On one hand, you’ve got the City painting a picture of being left out of the key parts of the relationship the EDC has with its Richmond constituents, having to fork over $730,000 without appropriate representation.

You’ve got a County official noting that the City is as well represented on the EDC board as the County or other entities, and that things are working just fine as they are, while the Chamber president notes that there may be a conversation to be had, but that the current actions being taken are too poorly timed.

What’s going on here?  Everyone seems to be making reasonable statements on the matter that represents the point of view of the entities they serve, but it sounds like they’re having the conversation with each other for the first time on the pages of the newspaper. ARGH!

If indeed the “conversation” was triggered by a City Council resolution refusing to designate its usual fund contribution to the EDC budget, then that seems like a really poor way to start things off. It sets up a battle full of pressure points and high-stakes leveraging, and needlessly sensationalizes the issue. Councilman Phil Quinn noted that they’re trying to “send a statement” – why do that with a public vote, when you could do it in a meeting, e-mail message or even postal mail? I suspect we’d be a lot farther along if there’d been in-person meetings between City, County, and Chamber officials trying to hash this out before going public with it, and while I don’t know firsthand that there wasn’t one, I suspect that they skipped that part.

By the same token, County and Chamber officials should not have responded in kind for a news story, using the media for power plays. When you say things like “it doesn’t make any sense to me,” or “this is extremely untimely” for the press, it’s a kind of public disapproval and shaming, even paternalistic finger-wagging, that can only serve to inflame whatever tensions might already exist. It also makes us look like we’re a community in chaos, which is exactly what economic development efforts don’t need. Instead, officials should have either refrained from commenting in any detail while noting that conversations are ongoing, or at least framed their concerns more positively – “We’re concerned about the timing and the reasoning here, but we’re ready to work with each other to understand everyone’s needs and broker a solution that works best for our citizens.” Would that have been so hard?

Yes, I’m basing all of this unsolicited advice on a single Pal-Item news story, and there may be other pieces of the puzzle not yet reported, but I think the theme here is not a new one for our community.

I’ve discussed the kinds of power struggles that are already built into the structure of our community building organizations, and when you throw in poor (or total lack of) communication on top of that, things are only going to get worse. I think it’s fine for community leaders to act shrewdly in the fulfillment of their vision for a better Richmond and Wayne County, but this cannot involve closing the door to dialog with other stakeholders – early and often.  Too frequently, we hear about one organization or government entity “scratching its head” at the actions of another, and then we throw up our hands and wonder why there’s little public confidence in our prospects for economic revitalization. Let’s connect some dots here, folks.

Mayor Sally Hutton is quoted as saying that “The bottom line is we want to work together…We will work something out.” Let’s hope that, for everyone involved, there’s not only an intention to work together but some actual mechanisms by which that might happen. These community leaders need to get in a room together TODAY, and they shouldn’t leave until they’ve got a joint media statement prepared that lays out a much more positive path forward. Richmond and Wayne County deserve at least that level of collaboration.

Update on 1/6/09: in an article today, the Pal-Item notes that the City Council has approved their contribution to the EDC’s budget, contingent upon a future appointment to the board.  This comes in the form of a 1-year agreement instead of the usual 4-year term.  According to the article, “No time frame was set for the first meeting between representatives of the city and county.”  This also comes on the same day as an announcement about the new EDC President.

Of course, the question after a talk like that will always be “what happens now?” – what conversations will be started, what doors did I open (or close), what actual impact will be made? Whatever happens, it continues to feel like a privilege to be able to connect and share with decision-makers and community-builders in the place I call home.

Remember, if you’re interested in having me give this talk to your group or organization, just let me know.

Hmmm, I wonder if he “shared” about his experiences in Richmond in the book – perhaps for his sake and ours, let’s hope not.

As a resident of Richmond for eleven years and a business owner here for
nine years, I’m very much invested in the growth of our community. But growth means different things to different people. Shortly after the newspaper coverage of my pledge, I received a message from a prominent Richmond businessperson and political figure indicating his frustration with my actions. I thought the conversation we had that proceeded would be useful to post here, more than a year later. (I’ve removed any identifying information from the exchange; he can identify himself if he so desires.)

As…a fellow small businessman I was very disappointed in your anti-business position in the newspaper. Evidently you don’t understand how our system here in America works or you don’t care. Richmond has been, is and I’m afraid always will be anti-growth and anti-opportunity because of citizen attitudes like yours. If we are ever to give our people a chance to live a better life we must become COMPLETELY pro-growth, pro-opportunity and pro-business. When business people attack business people there is no hope for our economic future.

My response:

“If you read the text of the pledge I put forth, I think you’ll find that it is in no way anti-business. The Palladium-Item has sort of spun it as a petition to keep businesses out and prevent growth, but that’s largely their attempt to sell papers, and I think they ignored the subtleties and spirit of the pledge itself in their reporting and editorial.

So, I wasn’t attacking anyone, and I don’t think being pro-growth, pro-opportunity, and pro-business are mutually exclusive with being able to preserve and protect the other aspects of Richmond that make it such a great place to live, and that help to attract businesses here in the first place.“

His response came back shortly:

I’ve lived here [for many decades] and I’ve heard arguments like yours a million times. Richmond was 38000 people in 1938 and it still is. What you say simply does not work! Real investors don’t care about what you say they care about! They only want two things – a high return on their investment and high security for it. Richmond provides neither because of a no-growth attitude. History proves that people with your attitude dominate what happens here – No Growth! No Opportunity! Your attitude has always won and that keeps Richmond just like it is. It really is sad that you can live a lifetime in a community that never even begins to reach its potential because of its attitude!!

My response:

“I respect that perspective, I really do – and I can’t even begin to understand how frustrating it must be to see that kind of stagnation over [so many] years. I definitely don’t claim to have all the answers or solutions – I certainly don’t have all of the context that you do when it comes to how our community operates.

What can we do differently that we’re not doing now?“

From there, we decided that we should get together in person to continue the discussion. We haven’t been able to do that yet, but I hope to some day.

I’m SO grateful to this man for taking the time to communicate with me directly and openly about his thoughts, as much in conflict as we started out being. So many others have responded by talking about me behind my back, using their (sometimes considerable) influence to harm me or the businesses/organizations which which I’m affiliated, and other nasty things that don’t belong in respectful discourse about the issues and choices that matter to us so much.

I’ll have more thoughts on this soon. But if you were having it today, where would you like to see the conversation go from here?

But Jackson conveniently (though perhaps unintentionally) omits a few key factors from his soliloquy on credibility, and the most key (in my opinion) is that he and the Pal-Item staff get to choose how the fruits of their important journalistic endeavors are presented to the public, and in ways that almost completely determine how the information will be processed and used by their readers.

The size and font of a headline. The tone and connotations of the words used to sell and introduce a story. The photo that accompanies a story – how is it lit and cropped, what is the caption, how does it present the subject. The amount of column inches devoted to a story and its impact, and where in the publication they are placed. The quality and length of the quotes from sources that provide “balancing” viewpoints. The opinion pieces that accompany a major story, and if/how they blur the perceived line between reporting facts and editorializing on them. How many follow up stories are done. Whether or not a special section of the Pal-Item website is created to draw more attention to a series online. And so on. All of these variables could ostensibly be said to have little or nothing to do with the “truth” that they help deliver, but all of them make up the all-important framing of the information and how it will be received.

Just as the majority of the public may not have the time to do the research and uncovering that the Pal-Item admirably takes on, the same majority does not have time to follow up on the sources or the research quoted in the resulting articles, and cannot necessarily, then, create for themselves a balanced view of a given issue without significant time and resources that most do not have to spare. And so they rely on what’s available: the Pal-Item and the few other limited news sources available. I will certainly agree with anyone who says it is the public’s responsibility to verify the information from first hand sources if they are going to act on it (or perhaps even spread it), but we all know that this isn’t how public opinion is formed in this town or most any other. People see headlines from afar, gossip about what they might mean, and at best bits and pieces of articles are skimmed and extracted for further digestion. The implications of a story, and the emotions and thoughts its presentation evokes, become the story itself. Any good journalist or page layout editor or news staff member knows this, too: framing trumps truth. (If you want to know why and don’t want to take my word for it, I recommend Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.)

Jackson notes that if the Pal-Item ever did make a factual mistake or some other error that required addressing, there’s always the great rectifying tool, “the correction.” But we all know that unless you’re scrambling to make things right in the wake of your own Jason Blair scandal, corrections don’t get front page headlines with a full page photo, and they very rarely contribute to refining the framing of an issue. How do you publish a correction apologizing for the size of a headline? And perhaps that’s why no one has sought corrections or clarifications from the Palladium-Item on these difficult issues: they feel that it really doesn’t matter in the end, when the principles of fair and balanced reporting on a given issue have already been superseded by printing what sells papers. Maybe that’s the Pal-Item readership just not holding up its end of the bargain? Maybe we need more Letters to the Editor about how the Editor spends his or her time? You’re reading mine.

I admire Rich Jackson and his staff, and I think that on the whole they do an excellent job of balancing the difficult requirements of being the only local printed news source in a town where news sometimes comes hard (see: every front page weather story they’ve ever had to write). And I admire that at least some there subscribe to some greater notion of objective truth that every citizen in our community has a right to access in some pure form. But I don’t think they should fool themselves – or their readers – by denying that they have (and often exploit) the ability to present the different sides of that truth while also significantly shaping how it is received, and what people do with it. If they ignore that truth, no triple-checking of facts or Code of Ethics will restore their credibility as a journalistic entity.

But whatever their troubles, to imply that Don Holbrook is the sole reason for them seems unfair. To do so by bringing out questions about his education and employment history, and to identify specific spending choices he made (e.g. “the large, multi-sectional, desk that he bought for $8,000″) out of the context of the organization’s internal affairs, seems outright malicious. Whether it’s the EDC board members or some other political players or the Pal-Item’s own news editors that are driving this effort, I hope they’ll consider stepping back and reconsidering how they want to present this information to the public.

What Wayne County does *not* need right now is further erosion of public confidence in the overall hope for economic development in the area. If certain staff or board members need to go, or if budgets need to be tightened or re-thought, so be it – but the people who decide those things should be having those conversations together and reporting on the results, seeking public feedback through their own channels, not through the Pal-Item opinion page. To have those conversations on the pages of the newspaper is disrespectful to Don, to each other, and to the public who deserve better from officials working on taxpayer time.

As the Palladium-Item notes, the burden of making these important choices should not fall on the folks who have mouths to feed, bills to pay, and very real short-term concerns to address. The responsibility instead falls on those who have the luxury of looking at the long term – the Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Corporation, the City and County governments, and the myriad private and public organizations and individuals who participate in the conversation about “what’s best for our community.” These entities should not be scared into pursuing just any opportunity for bringing jobs to town, because this approach will only reinforce the slow and steady erosion of Richmond’s diversity, heritage, and values, even if it does sprinkle some new jobs into the mix for now. Instead, they should discern a larger vision for how they can shape and mold Richmond’s future economic growth to benefit not only the current citizens, but also the generations to come. This means breaking away from our historical approach of “precedent equals justification” and “bottom line jobs created”, and taking some risks in the name of preserving and building on what Richmond was, is, and can be.

This driving vision should not only be reflected in the mission statements of these economic development entities, but also codified in the laws and policies that guide our economic choices as a community. Most of the existing zoning laws and ordinances are focused on specifying what activities are prohibited – chemicals you can’t use, the way properties/buildings can’t look, the land uses that aren’t acceptable, and so on; it would seem that a community intent on providing a better future for its citizens would also specify the activities and business decisions that are desirable, that will be supported and encouraged by the city planners.

To that end, I propose that we should at least carefully consider these kinds of questions about a given opportunity, if not adopt something like them as a formal standard for how we allocate resources and making decisions:

1. Will the new business contribute positively to Richmond’s image and character as a place where you’d want to grow up, live, raise your children, retire, etc.?
2. Will the new business compete with existing businesses in a way that will limit their continued growth and success (especially if the existing business is locally owned and operated and the new one is not)?
3. Will the new business contribute to strong local business districts and the identity of Richmond’s neighborhoods?
4. Will the new business minimize its impact on the harm to physical resources of Richmond’s landscape – re-using existing structures where possible, avoiding environmental degradation, etc?
5. Will the new businesses proactively consider quality of life issues in Richmond, not only of its employees, but also of the neighboring businesses and residents affected by its presence? Will it treat these people with concern and respect for their wants and needs?

Again, those are just rough examples; a more thorough approach like Richmond’s current work to develop a new comprehensive plan would be required to create a complete list of the questions our community needs to ask of potential new members, and how we should measure the responses. One of the hardest parts, of course, will be the public fall-out when we do come to the point of saying “there may be some immediate jobs down that path, but there’s long-term security in this other direction” or even, to a particular potential new employer, “we really don’t want you here.” Those looking for work may cringe and complain that they are being let down, and the politicians whose popularity and re-electability are tied up in public perception of economic choices may question any such approach. For a true positive driving vision to take root, then, a shift in thinking (and the accompanying personal sacrifices and compromises) for all involved will be required.

As I’ve said before, we have the ability, not to mention the duty, to take these important choices seriously. I’m glad the Palladium-Item is at least partly acknowledging that duty and the complexities of taking it on; I hope that the community leaders involved in these efforts — and all of us, really — will stand back and consider the big picture of their role in shaping Richmond’s future, not just the immediate economic impact.