IPG just didn’t measure up
By Bill Phillips
It should come as no surprise that council pulled the plug on Initiatives Prince George.
There were inklings during last fall’s election campaign that a Lyn Hall-led council might re-jig the arms-length economic development arm of the city. In his inaugural address last December, Hall said one of the topics that the new council would discuss at a council retreat would be business development and the role council plays with that.
While the status quo could have been the result of those discussions, it’s obvious the new council wants to be more involved, or at least more “in the loop” on business development.
Politically, it’s a good move for Hall and the new council.
IPG lost the public’s confidence years ago, if it ever had it. From Gerry Offet’s voluminous reports that really were statistics compilations, to Tim McEwan’s globe-trotting, to Heather Oland turning IPG into the city’s marketing arm (as opposed to economic development), the CEO of the embattled organization has always been under the microscope and a favourite target for pundits near and far (this one included).
Economic development is always a tough gig because the community wants results and, firstly, results can take years, and secondly, they’re hard to measure. One of the criticisms of IPG over the years has been its inability to show tangible results. IPG has been in place for more than 20 years and in that time the city’s population has been stagnant. We can’t blame that on IPG, but it’s an indication that economic development has also been stagnant during that time. So the question of why the taxpayers are pumping more than $1 million into economic development every year is a valid one, and the age-old answers that “these things take time” and “we have to build relationships” doesn’t wash because we’ve been at it for 20 years now.
We’ve run out of time.
Bringing economic development in-house is reverting back to the way things used to be for the city. There was a reason many cities in the 1980s, Prince George included, developed economic development corporations – many developers didn’t want to deal with politicians. When you think of it, it’s a pretty good reason. Keeping politicians away from developers makes a lot of sense.
However, there is the old measurables thing.
It’s fine and dandy to keep things at arm’s length, but unless council, and in turn the taxpayer, can see some tangible results, all the fancy reports, private parties during the Olympics, and junkets to Ireland and China mean nothing. In fact, the public would likely have been more forgiving of such measures, and the million dollar budget, had IPG been able to deliver some results.
Will bringing economic development in-house at the city provide better results? Only time will tell. And if the new economic development folks are looking for a place to start, rather than going hither and yon, they should start right here in Prince George. I’ve heard local developers make the complaint that IPG too often looked out-of-town for ideas when there are local developers wanting to develop (for the record I’ve heard that complaint about both McEwan and Oland, so maybe it’s a systemic thing).
Regardless, mayor and council won’t lose too many votes by putting IPG in mothballs, renaming Fort George Park, however, that’s another story for another time.
Bill Phillips is a freelance columnist living in Prince George. He was the winner of the 2009 Best Editorial award at the British Columbia/Yukon Community Newspaper Association’s Ma Murray awards, in 2007 he won the association’s Best Columnist award. In 2004, he placed third in the Canadian Community Newspaper best columnist category and, in 2003, placed second. He can be reached at billphillips1@mac.com
Comments
I agree with bill. IPG has cost the taxpayers of Prince George big money over they years.
We need to have a hard look at some sort of local development in the Greater Prince George area that will generate some jobs. Over the years Prince George has lost thousands of jobs due to downsizing, mill closures, and business such as warehousing, etc; moving to Edmonton, Vancouver, and Calgary.
Prince George now has a huge retired population, a huge population of people that work in the retail business at very low rates of pay, and a large number of people on social assistance. These three groups that make up a large part of the population of Prince George do not have the need or the money to buy homes, etc, and therefore we have a distorted picture when we look at population only, as opposed to actual income, that drives the economy.
So we need some industry that generates higher paying jobs, and that is the challenge for the Development Department.
What will that industry be?? Who knows, for the past 20/30 years while we slept at the switch, we lost a lot of business. We are now facing the possibility of more business moving West to Terrace to set up and serve Terrace/Kitimat/Prince Rupert/ and Highway 37. We, in Prince George will be left out in the cold, and need to re-invent ourselves or face the reality that we will not grow beyond where we are.
What Bill seems to forget.
If IPG is only the economic development /sales/marketing division
of the City of PG. That is like an outside salesperson.
We all know that an outside salesperson is only as good as the inside
team that is backing him up.
In the case of IPG, that inside team would be City Hall.
So they all need to take a look in the mirror.
To realize they are looking at the problem.
A September 2013 newspaper article, using 2011 census data stated that:
The median after-tax income for a couple family was
1. $76,545 in PG
2. $73,063 in BC
3. $72,356 in Canada
For lone families it was
1. $42,401 in Canada
2. $40,646 in BC
3. $38,379 in PG
For all families it was
1. $68,675 in PG
2. $67,915 in BC
3. $67,044 in Canada
That article also looked at housing costs for owners and renters.
For owners
1. $1,011 in PG
2. $1,141 in Canada
3. $1,228 in BC
For renters
1. $785 in PG
2. $848 in Canada
3. $989 in BC
One more. Homeowners spending more than 30 per cent of their income on housing.
1. 14.6% in PG
2. 18.5% in Canada
3. 23.8% in BC
For renters it was:
1. 40.1% in Canada
2. 43.8% in PG
3. 45.3% in BC
Maybe someone can find the change over time in the top industries by employment in the city. In 2013 the top three were:
1. 12.7% Health care/social assistance
2. 12.7% retail trade
3. 8.5% manufacturing.
Those figures were extracted by IPG, b.t.w. We do not get enough of such “how are we doing in comparison to others” information. They are known as lagging indicators for how a community is faring economically.
Leading indicators are “what are we doing in comparison to others”. The problem that most people perceive who do not understand that there are many disciplines which cannot show a direct cause and effect relationship with the work and the outcome of that work. Safety in all walks of life is another one of those disciplines.
The problem is that IPG or no IPG, someone needs to continue to look at “how are we doing” and decide “what should we be doing”. The most important measure of that, in my opinion, is to answer those questions in relation to other communities because that is how we will know that based on economics alone, we are keeping pace or even are positioned ahead of other communities.
Remember, we are dealing with economic development, not with infrastructure, social, environmental development although how we fare in those has an impact on economic development.
If anyone wants to look at a community that has been very successful in promoting itself through their EDC, one which has existed for 50 years, look at San Diego in California. Just put “edc san diego” into a search engine and look how they structure their quarterly report.
The problem as I see it with IPG is that the original connection between Mayor/Council and IPG was lost over time. In addition, the community, which includes Council, has really not been made aware of what one can expect from an economic development function.
Finally, how one can deal only with the economic development of the City’s boundaries is beyond me. This City has a much larger marketplace it needs to recognize and work with that goes quite far west and at least as far south as Quesnel and north as far as Mackenzie.
I agree with this article. After 20 years, there really isn’t much to report. I also find issue with IPG spending thousands on consultants and other professionals in the lower mainland rather than using home grown talent. A Vancouver-based company was used for the “move up PG” site. IPG is trying to sell the opportunity in PG, but is supporting the businesses in the lower mainland. Same with some of the consultants they’ve hired for some softball reports. Consultants out of Vancouver to compile basic data anyone with a stats background could do.
Funded by the city of PG to promote the city of PG, perhaps they should have hired within PG.
City Hall has said in the past that they will not give preference to local contractors/consultants when it comes to cost, except if they are within 10% of the low bidder. I suspect IPG had a similar policy. When that function moves to City Hall, do not expect to see a change.
I do not know what the policy at City Hall is these days. It would be good for someone to find that out. Of course, low bidder is not always the criteria for awarding a contract.
There are 7 people listed on staff. I think all or most are home grown. Perhaps that is where the problem lies.
The most important function of IPG is to make Prince George look good to business as well as people (because people are the raw product of what most businesses require) compared to other places. In order to do that one has to have information about at least the communities PG is in competition with plus the knowledge of what kind of businesses might want to operate from PG. That will continue to be the function of an internal versus an external operation. You have to know your competition.
The best private operation I can think of as a comparison is a large shopping mall. The manager and staff have to not only keep the existing merchants happy but also make sure that their mall is as close to 100% occupied as possible. The ideal is to have potential renters waiting in the wings so that if someone leaves, someone else will move into that place. Not only that, but they also must be prepared to enlarge the rentable area and even move existing stores around and cover those moving costs as an investment. They will also provide incentives to bring special retailers in. In addition, they try to make sure that they have the right mix which will maintain a sustainable mall.
Pine Centre used to have retailers waiting in the wings in the first 20 years of operation. I do not think they do anymore. Parkwood is certainly not doing too well as far as keeping the retail space rented to close to 100%. Spruceland is doing okay, but they have some empty storefronts as well as the old games centre in the back, I believe. The Hart, well, it’s the Hart. Nobody at the City is doing anything about the Hart. Backlin has been hustling for a decade to sell the property on O’Grady. They finally invested some money in upgrading the property.
The people in this city still make better than the average BC income and have lower than the average BC housing costs. On average, we are doing well. That is despite PG losing a significant number of forest product manufacturing jobs over the last 30+ years. They have been replaced by new jobs which actually makes our community’s job profile look closer to a larger city than to a single industry town. That makes our community more sustainable than it was in the 1970’s.
IPG got to big and we could not afford it any more. The changing the name of our Park , I can’t believe how fast it was pushed through with No public discussion , it was like we had no choice about it, also how much power one councillor seems to have. If you don’t like the name change you are a bad person.
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