Business Courier
June 24, 2005
By Dan Monk
Senior Staff Reporter

If you want a job done right, sometimes you just have to do it yourself. That's how the current crop of mayoral candidates view the job of economic development.

Democrat David Pepper, in a campaign proposal to be released June 24, calls for expanding the city's economic development division, now in the city manager's office, and moving it into the mayor's office. Pepper thinks the structural change would eliminate confusion and sharpen the city's development efforts.

"A businessperson looking at the city doesn't know who to call," said Pepper. "I want them to know, if you want to do business in this city, you're talking to the mayor. That's what people see in most other cities."

Pepper's 35-page plan, titled "Growing the city economy, bridging the economic divide," calls for better use and monitoring of tax incentives, improvements in local job training efforts and the development of a transit system to link destinations from the riverfront to the University of Cincinnati.
But the biggest change involves restructuring the city's economic development division, now a two-person shop that resides in the manager's office and has been reconfigured several times in recent years.

Pepper's change would not affect the city's community development and planning department, which administers zoning, planning and incentive programs.

Pepper said he would like to have up to five employees who would act as an economic strike force, making regular contact with Cincinnati's fastest-growing companies, monitoring compliance with tax-break deals and convening quarterly meetings with the many groups that now play a role in local development. He doesn't include any cost estimates for the new department or spell out how he'd pay for the new creation.

"A lot of it is trying to manage better what we're already spending," he said. "To me, this is a revenue generator."

Other candidates don't go as far as Pepper's proposal, but all think Cincinnati's next mayor should be more involved in economic development.

Republican Charlie Winburn said he would actively recruit new companies to Cincinnati and hold regular roundtable discussions on downtown, crime, neighborhood and economic development.

Democratic Vice Mayor Alicia Reece said she would rework the city's incentive programs to encourage companies to hire more city residents. She would also "encourage economic partnerships at every level," with the goal of growing small, minority- and women-owned businesses.
Democratic Ohio Sen. Mark Mallory said he would work with City Council to develop a broader policy for the use of tax incentives, but he questioned the concept of making the mayor the top economic development official.

"The problem isn't who gets to negotiate the deals," Mallory said. "The problem is that council hasn't set up the structure for when a corporation is eligible for a tax incentive."

Pepper, Mallory and Reece all voiced support for a new policy on tax breaks, with provisions that encourage the relocation of new headquarters to Cincinnati, the creation of higher-paying jobs with health benefits and the hiring of inner-city residents. Winburn saw little need to change the rules for tax breaks.

"The only way we'd change the rules is to make it easier to get them," he said.

Pepper said he developed his proposals after studying other cities' approaches to economic development, visiting Denver and Portland, Ore., to see how they handle the recruitment of new companies. He said other towns do a much better job of offering specific sites and incentives that apply to companies looking to expand, while Cincinnati offers only generalities.

"In Portland, they're out selling their city like they're selling a business," Pepper said. "I want to be able to make a business case for Cincinnati."

Xavier University political scientist Gene Beaupre said crime has emerged as the major issue in this year's mayoral race, but economic development will have an impact as well, particularly with "people who write campaign checks, people who care about the economic structure of the city."

Beaupre thinks Cincinnati voters generally recognize that the city's economic development approach is "broke and it needs to be fixed. They recognize the city needs to do something dramatic."