Economic Development Audit
Palo Alto County
February 11, 2004

Prepared by Smart Solutions Group on behalf of Mid Iowa Economic Development Corporation

• Introduction
• Communities and Economic Development Organizations
• Economic Development Discussion
• Audit Suggestions

Introduction

With the goal of improving the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the County economic development efforts, two input sessions were held in Palo Alto County on January 21st and February 11th. These sessions were attended by a cross section of business, economic development, city and county leadership involved or influenced by the overall economic development process in Palo Alto County. The first meeting was for input from the group and the second meeting was to review the summary and recommendations provided by the facilitator, Smart Solutions Group.

This audit process was a direct result of a project being conducted by the Mid Iowa Economic Development Corporation, an organization of eleven regional counties designed to seek collaboratively based solutions to support regional economic development. Thus, the purpose of our County sessions was to:

• Focus/Refocus the county economic development efforts
• Clarify roles and expectations concerning those efforts
• Develop a game plan for immediate implementation and future direction
• Incorporate local input with that of eleven other counties to form a regional composite picture.
  • Search for joint opportunities
  • Explore mutually beneficial collaborations

The first session began with an introduction to some key trends in economic development and then considered a statistical and asset overview of Palo Alto County. This overview was updated based on input from the session participants. That overview follows:

Communities and Economic Development Organizations

Communities:

Economic Development Organizations:

• Northwest Iowa Planning and Development Commission
• Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative
• Emmetsburg Economic Development
• Emmetsburg Chamber of Commerce
• Graettinger Economic Development
• West Bend Economic Development
• Mallard Betterment
• Various local action groups

Statistical Overview

Population Trends:

According to 2000 census information, Palo Alto County’s population is estimated to be 10,147. This ranks Palo Alto 80 of 99 counties in terms of Iowa population.

• From 1990 to 2000, the population of Palo Alto County decreased 4.9%.
• 14.8% are between the ages of 16 and 24; 23.2% are 25-44, and 21.9% are 45-65.
• 18% of the County population is over 65 years of age.
• The median age of the County has been increasing:
  1960 – 28
  1970 – 31
  1980 – 32
  1990 – 37
  2000 – 40

School Enrollment:
School enrollment in Palo Alto County is 2,695

Income Trends:
The 2001 average per capita income was $22,417 virtually the same as 1996 (22,103). The state of Iowa average per capita income for 2001 was $27,225. The mean wage for all industries was $11.46 and the entry level mean is $6.90.

Business and Industry:

• Major business sectors and employers include:
• Healthcare and related services
• Manufacturing
• Retail Trade

Top Employers:

Manufacturing and Financial/Insurance firms employing ten or more:

AG Processing Inc – Emmetsburg
Country Maid Inc – West Bend
Emmetsburg Publishing Co – Emmetsburg
Emmetsburg Ready Mix Co – Emmetsburg
Energy Panel Structures Inc. – Graettinger
Farmers Cooperative Elev Co. – Ruthven
Horizons Unlimited Inc – Emmetsburg
Institutional Equipment Inc. – Emmetsburg
Kerber Milling Co – Emmetsburg
Marietta Corp – Emmetsburg
Shaver Manufacturing Co – Graettinger
Skyjack Equipment Inc – Emmetsburg
Smarts Broadcast Systems – Emmetsburg
SNC Manufacturing Co Inc – Emmetsburg
Poet Biorefining (formerly Voyager Ethanol) - Emmetsburg
West Bend Elevator Co – West Bend

Education and Training/Workforce

School districts:

• Emmetsburg Catholic School
• Emmetsburg Comm. School District
• Graettinger Comm. School District
• Ruthven-Ayrshire Comm. School District
• St. Peter and Paul School
• West Bend-Mallard Comm. School District

Iowa Lakes Community College has a campus serving Emmetsburg, which offers vocational-technical, career option, and liberal arts programs.

No labor shed information is available.

5,021 people comprise the labor force in Palo Alto County according to the 2000 US Census.

Infrastructure Providers/Sites and Buildings

Utilities/Telecomm Providers:

• Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative
• River Valley Telecommunications Cooperative
• Emmetsburg Municipal Utility
• West Bend Municipal Utility
• Graettinger Municipal Light Plant
• MidAmerican Energy
• Northwest Telephone

Sites and Buildings:
Emmetsburg City Industrial Park – Emmetsburg
County Industrial Park – Emmetsburg
Industrial sites also in West Bend and Graettinger

Financial and Access to Capital:
Banks:

• Iowa State Bank – Ruthven
• Iowa Trust and Savings – Emmetsburg
• Laurens State Bank – 3 locations
• West Iowa Bank – West Bend
• Wells Fargo Bank – Emmetsburg
• Bank Plus – Graettinger

Incentive Programs:

• Tax abatement
• Revolving Loan Funds

Quality of Living:
Palo Alto County Health System includes a variety of healthcare options including Palo Alto County Hospital; PARV Hall Long Term Care Facility; Community Health Services; Willow Ridge Independent Living and three medical clinics—Family Practice Clinic-Emmetsburg, Family Practice Clinic – Graettinger, and Family Practice Clinic - West Bend.

Recreation options include state and local parks, like Kearney State Park and Five Island Lake in Emmetsburg, golf courses, hunting and fishing as well as numerous lakes. In addition, the area is home to the West Bend Grotto and Huston County Park.

Economic Development Discussion

In addition to the County Overview session participants provided their perspectives on economic development conditions within the County.

Key County Assets

• Lakes
• Recreational opportunities
• Golf Courses in all communities
• Outstanding work ethic/productivity
• Communications and technology services are a plus
• Good roads
• Good location
• Rail Service
• Natural gas pipeline
• College/strong educational environment
• Strong medical services

Issues for Consideration/Concern

• Decline in population
  • Older
  • Adverse to change
  • Shortage of skilled workers
  • Young people leaving
  • If a business closes, they have few options
• Low wage jobs
• No major transportation lanes
• Not much shopping
• Limited cultural events\
• No “comprehensive” County development organization
• Need to be more proactive
• Need to change attitudes
  • Lack of commitment to economic development
• Lack of money and some infrastructure
  

Overall Economic Development Atmosphere

• Seen as making strides forward as compared to the past
• Some new business growth
• Some new home growth
• Each community gives itself different ratings for their recent economic development achievements:
  • Graettinger B+
  • West Bend B
  • Emmetsburg C
  • Overall B-

Note: Casino License has substantially increased visibility of the County in 2005.
AG Processing Bean plant and Voyager Ethanol plant have increased jobs, traffic, and economy.

County Development Priorities

• Need to organize on a County basis.
• Create an active “comprehensive” County organization
  • Build on the existing Palo Alto Development group
  • Need a County development web site
  • Need a County development plan
• Need to stress cooperation
• Need to explore non Ag-business development
  • Who? Need to identify the right prospects
  • Technical
  • White collar
  • Light manufacturing
  • Alternative Ag – By products
• Need to zero in/promote our County assets
  • Lake
  • Tourism
  • Market assets aggressively
• Need to define who we are and what we stand for
• Need to increase our voice
• Need to continually educate groups and individuals on economic development needs/roles/actions
• Need to sell ideas internally
  • Be more visible
• Need to address lack of understanding of the importance of ED
  • Attack apathy
  • Spread out the message

Audit Suggestions

Emphasize Points

• Unite
• Focus
• Take Action
• Achieve

Unite
Going it alone makes little sense in today’s economic environment. Not only is there safety in numbers, there are good, mutually beneficial ideas in numbers when communities come together to find common ground.

Focus
You will not get anywhere if you don’t have a destination. The County needs a comprehensive game plan in order to move forward. This should be a plan that considers all options, build a consensus driven course, sets measurable (but achievable) objectives and engages a broad cross section of the County in the implementation and achievement of these objectives.

Take Action
Your light won’t get noticed under a basket. The County needs to find ways to increase their visibility to key influencers, business target and the existing businesses and residents of the County. Spreading the word is not about hype, it is about delivering factual information that demonstrates or emphasizes the assets of the County.

Achieve
You already have experienced combined successes. Build on these, promote these successes and find new opportunities to achieve.

Specific Suggestions
Unite
Build on the existing mission and structure of the Palo Alto Development group which was formed to address the potential casino:

• Expand the charter/mission of the group to include comprehensive economic development activities.
• Review representation and ensure that all communities, county interests and the business sectors are represented in the leadership of this newly expanded group.
• Focus on the entire County.
• Gain input on overall County development priorities and direction. Build a consensus and take action.

Conduct a joint County Economic Development Planning Summit.

• Use the opportunity to engage in open discussion about the issues/needs or concerns of the County as they relate to development.
• Consider the following potential questions at the Summit:
  • What specific assets do we possess that others would find attractive?
  • What underemphasized/underdeveloped resources do we possess and what can we do about that?
  • How can we translate our individual community strengths into a broader “core message” for the entire County?
  • What are the priorities that we can agree on for collaborative development?

Focus
Develop a comprehensive County Economic Development Plan

• Build a consensus on the County brand/position
• Prepare a clear, measurable set of goals
• Organize taskforces to address key issues – create a fixed time period for theses efforts. These are not on-going committees, but short-term get it done taskforces
• Focus the efforts of the ED into three primary categories
  • Marketing
  • Development
  • Administration
• Engage County and community leadership in actively promoting the sharing of plans, ideas, obstacles, and opportunities with the aim of creating greater synergy throughout the area.

Consider a plan with the following components and process:

• Situation Review – A Context for Planning
• Impact Targets – Who/What will we focus our efforts on and with?
• Objectives – What we desire to accomplish during the planning period.
• Strategies – How do we intend to achieve these objectives?
• Tactics – What specifically is planned to help achieve these objectives?
• Timeline and Responsibilities – what reasonably can be accomplished by a given date and who will do what and when?
• Feedback/Measurement – How we can make sure we are on track?

Process

• Create a planning committee
• Empower them to prepare draft
• Involve a range of people in the process
• Set an absolute “end date” for completion
• Communicate the resulting plan to everyone
• Ask for endorsement/support of the plan

Take Action

• Prioritize your key actions – remember that sometimes small bites are the best
• Ensure measurement and accountability.
• Develop a single source for comprehensive information about the County.
  • Web site
  • Contact point
  • Link all communities together – work to continually improve communications and maintain compatible information throughout the County.

Examples of potential taskforces

Marketing
Focusing on all matter related to internal and external marketing and communications. Marketing the County will require a joint effort to ensure success. As such, these three task forces should communicate regularly and work closely together to gain maximum synergy from their efforts. Includes the following committees:

Targeted Industry Task Force
Overall, this taskforce will explore, recommend and become active agents to improve the potential for growth of select industries for Palo Alto County. They will collect and review existing economic data, consider existing relationships (industry, academics and County) and identify immediate targets for development. This group will be responsible to develop, implement and monitor marketing efforts designed to attract new industries to the County.

Existing Business Development Task Force
This task force will work with existing business and industry within the County to enhance their growth and prosperity. They will function as business consultants, marketing advisors and strategic partners. This group will work closely with the targeted industry task force to identify additional industry or business services that will enhance the County marketing opportunities.

Tourism/Alumni Task Force
This task force will focus efforts on developing a comprehensive tourism program. This will include the development of existing attractions, the strategic development of new tourism opportunities and the creation of an overall County tourism market plan. A secondary role of this task force will be to develop an on-going dialogue with former residents designed to bring them back into the County for both tourism and business opportunities.

County Development
Work on task forces and plans to influence County improvement. These are action groups, each setting specific measurable goals for achievement within defined timeframes. Includes committees of:

Housing Task Force
This group will explore the overall County housing needs. Utilizing existing and future housing needs assessments, the group will make recommendations and in all ways, facilitate and encourage the development of all types of housing in the Palo Alto county area. Additional this task force can play a key role in matching property owners with interested developers and encourage the development of property for housing development.

Palo Alto County Technology Task Force
Formed to address and suggest immediate solutions to technology access issues with the county.

Child Care Task Force
This group would be charged with the consideration, pursuit and achievement of expanded Child Care services for the County.

Administration
This group is established to provide the on-going monitoring and enhancement of Palo Alto County Economic Development services and approaches. This would ensure that the interests of all partners are considered and work to achieve an action consensus on items critical to the growth of the County. Includes:

Research Task Force
Providing information and data gathering assistance to the marketing taskforces, this group will work to provide the needed intelligence for the development of a proactive, relationship building industry recruitment, existing business development and tourism outreach effort. This research will be conducted via a variety of sources including the Internet, outreach to institutions of higher learning and direct solicitation of information.

Collaboration Task Force
Set in place to explore methods for enhanced collaboration and organizational symmetry between all County stakeholders.

Finance Task Force
This group would be charged with identifying and pursuing a variety of funding sources to support the overall County development efforts.

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