BRATTLEBORO — When commerce moved by sail, the worst situation was being becalmed. A lack of wind meant a lack of progress and a loss of money, so sailors had a thousand tricks to bring a breeze - all based on superstition, and none of which really worked.
From those days comes our expression “whistling up the wind” - a phrase that has come to mean placing your faith in false hopes.
“Whistling up the wind” is a good description of our situation as the governor and his team reboot the Windham County Economic Development Program (WCEDP), once again - as last time - whistling for jobs and hoping for results.
About a year ago, the governor announced the program for deploying the $10 million of Entergy money meant for economic development in Windham County.
I wrote at the time that the proposed program did not match the need and, as the governor and the Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD) discovered, that was exactly true.
So at last December's awards announcement, the governor bravely said that the program needed a “reboot.”
Those were welcome words for those of us who thought the Entergy fund represented a great opportunity for a region already hard hit by losses of jobs and population.
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There has been a great deal of work and discussion in the region over the past nine years about economic challenges and appropriate strategies. The region, led by the Southeast Vermont Economic Development Strategies group (SeVEDS), developed a nationally recognized Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS); now, many community discussions begin with economic development.
Economic development is complicated. We have few direct levers to influence outcomes; time frames can be extensive and results unpredictable.
Economies notoriously don't follow political jurisdictions or policies. People drive across state lines for jobs, as they did to VY, and as they do to the Brattleboro Retreat, Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, Sonnax, and G.S. Precision. Vermonters work at companies in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Investment capital goes where it finds opportunity, not policy. More to the point: We can say all day that we want new businesses and jobs in Vermont and Windham County, but that doesn't make them come.
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That's what makes this “reboot” so interesting. It certainly sounded in December as though the governor and his team had recognized that whistling was not going to work and that they would need to rethink the program.
There followed conversations between the state government and regional and local parties.
ACCD, to its credit, sought advice early in the discussions and reached out to a variety of people.
Regional entities, to their credit, worked hard to strengthen local relationships to propose a coordinated, consolidated regional platform.
All that was positive. But in mid-February, all discussion stopped as the process dropped into an ACCD black box.
The first view of results from that box, as announced by the governor at the Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce lunch on April 15, suggests that while there have been tweaks, there have been no substantial changes.
The regional economic development entities (which have knowledge, passion, and experience), and the local organizations (with direct interest and concern) are little more involved than they were in round one.
More precisely, the new incarnation appears to be, again, mostly a revolving loan program despite the known fact that the existing revolving-loan programs are underused.
Changing interest rates a bit merely opens competition with our banks, all of which have money to lend, and ignores the knowledge that the Federal Reserve has held its key rates at or near 0 percent for years in an effort to stimulate the national economy - a policy which is just now, eight years later, beginning to have some impact as the U.S. economy is adding jobs and profits.
Offered along with the major allocation to loans are a much-smaller request-driven grant program, and a trump card known as “incentive funds” for special applications, needs, or projects that don't fit.
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We all know the old saying, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The WCEDP reboot would seem to be an instance of exactly this well-worn phrase. The governor and the ACCD are trying again to make a loan program work in a situation where access to lending is not the primary issue.
We know from long, hard research and study that a key issue facing our region is the difficulty our companies face in hiring enough quality people. Our declining and aging population yields a tightly constrained workforce.
Worse, companies with good jobs to fill often cannot attract talent to move to Vermont because of the cost of living, the lack of appropriate housing, and insufficient jobs for “trailing spouses.” The basic problem is clearly not a lack of lendable funds.
If we know the issues and we have people in the region who are committed to addressing them, why would the state insert its own view that somehow just whistling for jobs will make them happen?