Editorials: Giving to government

For generations, the Storm Lake Chamber Of Commerce and Storm Lake Area Development Corporation, now merged into Storm Lake United, looked after the commercial and industrial ambitions of The City Beautiful while city hall tended streets, sewers, parks and police. It was a good arrangement that unraveled over time as the city sought to consolidate economic development activities — and necessarily clip the wings of Storm Lake United.

The city has redirected funds from subsidizing Storm Lake United to building its own empire, hiring economic development and marketing staff while slowly starving SLU. Now, the city manager is talking about starting a foundation to accept land and other gifts for economic development. Storm Lake United organized the industrial park many years ago. It has raised money to help lure industrial prospects and offered land ready for development. The city suggests that it can do the job better.

A fool may part with his money to a foundation run by a city that cannot keep track of its tax revenue. It is harder to see why a philanthropist would want to donate to an entity that is certainly not afraid to use its taxing authority and ability to raise fees of all kind.

A foundation run by the city will compete with Buena Vista University, St. Mary’s School, the Buena Vista County Foundation and numerous other non-profits and charities that feed from much the same pie. The city fills no need that is not already served by forming a foundation.

The city is able to accept gifts for the parks. If a corporation wanted to donate $10 million to help fix our water system, we’re sure there’s a way to make that happen without a fuss.

Business should take care of business. We have the Buena Vista County Foundation. BVU is working like a beaver trying to raise funds. The city should stay in its lane. Fund Storm Lake United. If you don’t like the way it is run, engage the board of directors in a discussion. Quit cutting the legs out from the organization, or it cannot help the city achieve its growth goals.

Unfortunately, Iowa bought in to this model of government control of business development. We have a state agency, a regional outfit that we are forced to support in Spencer, and now the city is attempting to round out the effort. The city hired an outside firm to recruit retailers that compete with existing members of Storm Lake United. It proposed to tell downtown property owners what their businesses should look like. When Iowa was conservative, we resisted government creep. Now the government proposes that you give it money on top of your ballooning tax bill. It will take care of your business, for sure.

Treading water

Buena Vista and Cherokee counties have essentially recovered the jobs lost during the pandemic, according to figures compiled by The New York Times from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Buena Vista’s job count was down just 0.3% from 2019 to 2023, while Cherokee’s grew by 0.8%. This is better performance than many rural counties.

The Sun Belt generally recovered much faster, and the Upper Midwest lagged. We were served well by food processing and light ag manufacturing, which simply had to go on despite the pandemic. Construction jobs boomed in Buena Vista by about 8%, while health care and education jobs declined by 14%. In Cherokee, health and education grew 8% while manufacturing jobs expanded by 13%. Hospitality suffered.

Overall, the two counties are not growing their labor market. The largest declines are in white-collar jobs, according to the statistics.

The US economy in this remarkable economic expansion has created far more jobs than what were lost during the pandemic. That is not necessarily true in Buena Vista or Cherokee counties, where the labor market is flat and unemployment is low. This suggests that our regional and local economic development mechanisms greased by tax dollars are not working that well. It also suggests that the federal recovery programs have not been as successful here as they have been in other places. Workers here continue to tread water.