The Spokane Area Economic Development Council is about to increase both its economic-development role and its connections to the public.


As of Jan. 1, the organization, which has been tightly focused for years on recruiting new businesses, will add duties such as business retention, business expansion, and technology-sector development to its agenda, says EDC President Mark Turner. In a second new thrust, he says, the organization will put a lot more public into the public-private partnership that drives it.


The private sector has been dominant, I would say for some timein setting the organizations goals and in providing roughly 90 percent of its funding, says Turner.


Spokane has a heritage of private leadership; I would hate to lose that, he says. Yet, economic development is underfunded here, Turner claims. He says, for example, that the EDCs budget of roughly $1 million is far less than that of the Port of Walla Walla, which serves a county thats much less populous than Spokane County.


Jim Kuntz, executive director of the Port of Walla Walla, says that organization will have a $4.5 million budget next year, and the county it serves, Walla Walla County, has 54,000 people, just 13 percent of Spokane Countys population.


Says Turner, Where we find ourselves in deficit is not on the private side, but on the public side. Rather than the current 90-10 split in the funding of the EDCs efforts, I would like to see it be more of a 60-40 split, with the private sector still providing the majority of the stake spent on economic development, he says.


Turner isnt talking about increasing the publics share of the funding merely by getting more money from the general funds of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, which the EDC already taps. Instead, he says, hes talking about taxing everyone in the community to support economic development, perhaps through the formation of an organization such as a port district.


Hes convinced, however, that if officials asked voters now to create a port district, they would turn down such a request, as they did in 1982 when they rejected by a 4-to-1 margin a proposal by Spokane County to form such a district.


Yet, Turner says, its a new day todayand a different time than when the EDC didnt involve the public as it set its goals.


If this organization is going to be a community-based economic-development organization, its going to have to respond to community needs, Turner says. This community has never been asked what its economic-development needs are.


To ask the community for its ideas, town-hall meetings will be held during the first six months of 2001, Turner says. The plan, he says, is to re-create our organization from the ground up as a public-private organization, with greater involvement by the public sectorthe government as well as the public at large.


While the EDC in the past has retained consultants to do economic-development studies, consultants dont reach into the neighborhoods, they dont reach into the community to gather residents views on economic development, Turner says. To some people, economic development means more cars on the freeway, while to others it means elimination of poverty, or better jobs, he says. Up till now, we have not had the organizational structure to seek the public support, Turner says. Theres some suspicion out there of our motives. But I think once we make that table bigger, the suspicion will go away.


The EDC already has conducted meetings with other organizations here as it works to redefine its role. It plans to complete those discussions during the first half of next year, but will begin filling at least part of its expanded role right away by recruiting as many as four new staff members in the first quarter, Turner says.


The agency, which has eight staff members now, already is recruiting two added support personnel, and it plans to hire, also in the first quarter, two new business-development professionals, although funding arrangements havent been completed yet to add the four positions, he says.


Turner says that by about mid-December, the EDC will complete work on its annual budget for 2001, which will call for spending about $1.4 million, or $400,000 more than this year. Turner says the added funding will come through increased involvement by the city, the county, and Focus 21, the private economic-development organization.


Spokane County tentatively has increased its annual allocation to the EDC to $300,000 from $80,000 in its budget for 2001, which was scheduled for adoption this week, says Francine Boxer, the countys chief administrative officer. Focus 21 spokeswoman Janelle Fallan was unaware of an increase in money for the EDC from that organization, but Turner says the EDC expects to receive funds that Focus 21 had been giving to the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce for business retention and expansion. Dick Cook, the city of Spokanes finance director, says the city has designated $85,500 for the EDC in its proposed budget for 2001, which is the same amount it allocated for the EDC this year. Cook knew of no plans to increase the amount budgeted by the city for the EDC for 2001.


Turner says, The city might not be able to step up as much as theyd like to at this point, but he thinks the desire is there for the city to increase its support of economic development. In October, a Mississippi consultant retained by a task force appointed by Mayor John Talbott to study ways to invigorate Spokanes economy recommended increasing the economic-development role of the EDC and giving the agency a more independent source of funding.


Turner hopes that by the end of 2001, the EDC will have secured enough additional money to beef up its annual budget to $2 million, which is double the budget that it has this year. Hed like to see the agencys resources continue to grow until its budget is around $3 million perhaps three years from now. Most benchmarks would justify that.


While those budget goals arent hard and fast, results from some meetings with other organizations about the EDCs new role are.


For instance, the EDC and the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce have agreed that the EDC will take care of job recruitment and creation, technology-sector development, and business retention and expansion. The chamber will handle work-force development, capacity and infrastructure issues, public policy, regional image, and business growth.


The chamber had been handling business retention and expansion. Chamber President Rich Hadley says that while the EDC will take on the responsibility of calling on businesses as part of business retention and expansion, we will continue and actually elevate the part of it that involves working with regulatory agencies.


Asked if hes comfortable with the change, Hadley, who is a member of the EDCs board, says, Sure.


He adds, The chamber has a lot of members. Most of them are small businesses. Were still going to help them. Were going to play an ombudsmans role with our members, and not just with our members, but with other small businesses as well, Hadley says.


While the two organizations have agreed to that arrangement, the EDC still must work out revised cooperative roles with many of more than 30 other organizations it works with, Turner says. Thats one of the things the EDC will work to complete in the first six months of 2001along with a comprehensive economic-development plan for the Spokane area, Turner says. It will include a technology-based development plan.


Were going to have to spell out a different technology-development future if we plan to have a different technology-development future, Turner says.


The new EDCwhich might or might not undergo a name changewill be an organization of organizations, to coordinate deployment of resources spent on economic development while serving as part of an alliance type of structure that involves other agencies, Turner adds.