[Vision2020] real economic development in Moscow

[Bill London]

Today's Tribune article about the MCA forum held last night is a great summary of the choices facing Moscow voters in this council election.  Vote for the future with MCA endorsed candidates and Moscow will aim for both maintaining its uniqueness and attracting more entrepreneurial businesses.  My thanks to the MCA board for sponsoring this forum.  BL

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Is high-tech the key to Moscow's future?
Forum sponsored by Moscow Civic Association brings together business and community leaders
By David Johnson 
October 23, 2007


MOSCOW - The economic future of Moscow will depend more on attracting and retaining high-tech companies than encouraging more housing and retail business, members of a panel agreed Monday night.

"In the basic form, economic development is jobs," said B.J. Swanson, vice president of AmericanWest Bank here and chairwoman of the board of directors for Gritman Medical Center. "But not just any job." She said jobs should provide enough money to offer a reasonably comfortable living.

Robin Woods, president of Alturas Analytics located in Moscow, said 100 percent of her bio-tech business comes from outside Idaho, most of it from the San Francisco Bay Area. Yet, she and her partners opted to locate here because of the quality of life that's available

"Probably it would have been better to locate in San Francisco or Seattle, but with Fed Ex and the fiber-optic that we have ... and with the Internet, the world is flat and we can conduct our business here," Woods said.

David Alexander, a UI graduate and CEO of Ivus Industries, a small business he decided to locate here, said Moscow is an ideal location for entrepreneurs to tap into a high-tech labor pool that spins off both the University of Idaho and neighboring Washington State University in Pullman.

"What the business is, is a focus on extremely fast-charging rechargeable products," Alexander said of his startup company. He said the company, which has four employees, is currently developing a fast-charging flashlight.

Judy Brown, an economist and director of the Idaho Center on Budget and Tax Policy, said research shows if a community creates a good living environment, jobs will come. "The key thing that attracts" entrepreneurs and businesses to an area, Brown said, is quality of life, not tax breaks. 

"Quality of life and the ability to work either from home or near home," she said, "are the two really key things in deciding where people locate those kinds of businesses."

The forum, sponsored by the Moscow Civic Association, comes two weeks prior to a city council election here that many say hinges on attitudes about economic growth. Bruce Livingston, president of the MCA, said the forum was called in part to dispel the notion that the MCA is anti-economic growth. He said the MCA is "pro business, pro growth and pro community."

About 30 people, including several council candidates, attended the forum at the 1912 Center.

Swanson said Moscow needs to wean itself from a housing and retail fixation about growth. "Our voracious appetite to approve subdivision after subdivision, to build high-end homes, has run out of high-end people to occupy them," Swanson said, adding that new retail businesses seem to be only replacing old ones.

"Over-built housing and replacement retail is not a good economic model," Swanson said.

According to statistics presented at the forum, Moscow has a population of about 22,350 and UI employs about 2,870 people. Gritman employs 431, with the Moscow School District and Wal-Mart, by comparison, employing 350 and 207 people, respectively.

Swanson said it's time for the community to get back on the right economic track with the primary focus on good-paying jobs and a secondary focus on housing and retail business. "And as always, focus on anything that will help the University of Idaho. They've carried us for years. It's time for us to get out and carry ourselves."

All the panelists said Moscow city officials and members of the city council have been extremely pro-business.

"Our intent is to hire WSU and University of Idaho graduates," Woods said about her expanding business. She said that all but one of the 30 people working at Alturas Analytics are from the two universities. Woods said it's important for Moscow to complete it's rewrite of the comprehensive plan, and to keep tech businesses together to encourage more business.

"I think it's important to have kind of a think-tank atmosphere," she said, "kind of a campus atmosphere in your tech park. So I don't think it's a good idea to scatter things here and there."

Swanson pointed out Alturas Technology Park, located on the southeastern edge of town, had modest beginnings, but now is home to around 150 jobs that have annual salaries of $50,000 and up. "And those jobs really contribute back to the community," she said.

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Johnson may be contacted at deveryone at potlatch.com or (208) 883-0564.

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