Spokane can boast about its winning ways
Spokane is again an All-America. Now, local officials are considering how the city might use that honor, as college athletes do, to become a high draft pick.
Business recruitment is at least as competitive as any sports contest. Only a few hundred businesses of any size relocate each year, and thousands of cities bid for the investment and the jobs. All-America recognition can be the score that assures a signing bonus.
It would be easy to dismiss the award announced Saturday by the National Civic League as so much gold-plated boosterism. The temptation would be especially keen this year because most of the 10 winners were relatively small cities. Only Stockton, Calif., is larger than Spokane. But Des Moines, Iowa, and Tempe, Ariz., were among last year’s winners, and Philadelphia and Phoenix have cared enough about the honor to apply and win four times.
Obviously, many communities of all sizes attach some value to winning.
Coeur d’Alene won in 1990, and continues to flaunt the recognition on highway signs and the lapel pins given to important visitors.
NCL materials promoting All-America status quote Paul Anderson, chairman of the Jobs Plus business recruitment effort, on the economic gains Coeur d’Alene has made since winning, to wit: relocation of 71 companies, investment of $100 million, and the creation of 3,900 jobs.
Was being named All-America making the difference when selling prospective clients, or did the things the community did to get the award seal the deals? Anderson says he does not know, and is not sure it matters.
“The nice thing is that through this 13-year period we’ve been able to talk about being All-America,” he says. “Does it make a difference? Yes.”
Tom Flynn, economic development director for Charlotte, N.C., says businesses know an All-America city has good employees taking the right steps to address problems, that the community is diverse, and that its own employees can be engaged in community affairs.
Charlotte is a former winner. Flynn was among this year’s judges. He says he liked the spirit demonstrated by Spokane’s delegation at last week’s convention, the success revitalizing downtown, development of the Terabyte Triangle communications network, and progress towards empowering the city’s youth.
“The community was really working together on projects,” Flynn says.
Wednesday, Mayor Jim West and representatives from various community groups discussed how the NCL award can be used to continue the city’s progress. At the least, the enthusiastic response by the 1,000-plus who attended the Atlanta meeting should be a rebuttal to those who choose to overlook the assets the city has, and the many groups working to make life still better.
“We take things for granted in Spokane,” said Ben Cabildo, executive director of AHANA and one of those who attended the Atlanta meeting. He suggested the award be considered a promise to city residents, and particularly its youth, that city leadership is committed to further progress.
Some businesses wasted no time hyping the award’s value. West says he ran into a Realtor Monday who had added the All-America logo — a shield with an American flag motif — to her Web site. Look for it soon on everything from billboards to letterhead.
Beyond that, the task of the business community will be to take the important community validation the award bestows, and produce tangible benefits, like jobs. Coeur d’Alene, obviously, bottled some of that lightning. Comments from all the NCL judges, when they arrive in a week or two, may provide some guidance on how to do that.
West, meanwhile, is talking about reapplying for the award in 2007 as a way of affirming that the work done so far will serve as a jumping-off point for the next few years. Too often, Spokane has hit a peak, only to let the effort lapse and the benefits dissipate. The slowdown in the community’s economy after Expo ‘74 is a classic example.
And that year happens to be the last time Spokane was an All-America city.