Editor's note: To read a competing viewpoint on this topic, visit http://tinyurl.com/5ddrbj3s.
I have been following with some amusement and a certain sense of déjà vu the rumblings from some members of our community about the expenditures by the Lewis County leadership on lobbying and other expenses related to the Transalta hydrogen project. Acting with shock and dismay (as these folks are) that some expenditure is taking place to bring a gigantic project into the county, and the economic progress it would bring when many other communities are also chasing the same project or types of projects, is absurd.
As the saying goes, “You have to spend money to make money,” and I know this because I have been involved with economic development work for almost 30 years and have represented some very recognizable national brands in their quest to increase their profitability and relevance in the global marketplace. I started my work in economic development with the Shasta County Economic Development Corporation (Shasta EDC) in far northern California in my late 20s.
Shasta County still had much in common with Lewis County at that time. The county is rural and has struggled to maintain a solid economic base. The need to lure higher-paying jobs has been a struggle. The region is blessed with a pleasant climate (although a bit too hot in the summer for my tastes) and has many recreational outdoor opportunities.
When I worked for the Shasta EDC, one of the most significant projects the organization was trying to bring to the region was a Knauf Insulation production facility. The 500,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility, built in 2002, sits on 100 acres near the Shasta Gateway Industrial Park. The plant employs 156 employees and operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The facility is one of the largest suppliers of sustainable insulation products to the Pacific Northwest region.
The effort to get that plant approved, sited and built took a decade. It included my public relations services and a team that included lobbyists in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., various lawyers, environmental consultants and more. The Shasta County EDC, like the Economic Alliance of Lewis County, was and is funded by public and private funds, including prominent local employers and various government entities, including the County of Shasta, the City of Redding, and, at the time, the cities of Shasta Lake and Anderson. (Exactly what the funding situation is now, I do not know.)
The average pay for a fiberglass production worker is around $40,000 per year. With 156 employees, the plant has generated an average annual payroll north of $6 million a year or around $120 million in direct payroll into the community during the past 20 years. This, of course, does not count the economic ripple effect that a large facility like this creates.
Everyone in economic development knows that production facilities such as Knuaf, or a refinery, paper mill, or hydrogen production facility — in other words, projects where things are made — are the most desirable because they generate ancillary jobs (the food truck that comes three times a day, the janitorial company that cleans the offices, the recycler locally that gets rid of the waste product and more, in a way that other things like retail and hospitality do not).
The effect that getting the Knuaf project had on Shasta County was a huge economic boost to the area and is a gift that keeps giving.
The TransAlta operation would seemingly have a similar impact in Lewis County. And at what cost?
The locals I described at the top of this piece are concerned that the county has a political “fixer” named Kent Caputo under contract (at $10,000 a month). I have been described in the same terms, so I sympathize with the negative connotations of this description (although I am not Ray Donovan). This contract goes through the county prosecutor’s office. Why not the county? I don’t know the answer, but this is not my first rodeo in this area. I would suppose it is because a competent lawyer oversees the work. It would be a prescription for making sure no lines are even nearly crossed in the execution of his duties. This seems like prudent management to me by the players involved.
There is another contract for $5,000 monthly with another firm — a lobbying firm once employed by the Lewis County Economic Alliance and now by the county itself. Again, I can’t tell you for sure why this is. Still, the most logical reason would be that instead of having a third party (the Economic Alliance) oversee the lobbying firm trying to bring the most significant project to Lewis County in decades, the county commissioners and managers wanted to have direct control themselves. Again, this seems like prudent management.
All of this kerfuffle is being driven by these two contracts that add up to about one-tenth of one percent of the county’s annual budget, and to put that in perspective, the coroner costs the county four times as much annually, and indigent defense about 10 times as much. This begs the question — is that really about these contracts and this amount of money being spent, or is it something else?
It appears to this veteran of economic development that this is more like what we faced with the opposition to the Knuaf project in Shasta County. People with personal and political axes to grind combined with others who are simply afraid of change or, heavens forbid, growth in the community — the more economic opportunity will draw more people and more homebuilding and related commercial activity — simply grasping at any straw men or boogeymen to try to scare others into not supporting what will be in the end an excellent project for Lewis County.
Lou Desmond is a Lewis County resident and the president of Desmond & Louis, a public relations firm with extensive economic development experience, among other areas of expertise. He teaches law enforcement communications courses for hundreds of departments in the Western United States.
