Farmington Officials Hammer Out 2012 Goals

When it comes to setting a course for 2012, Farmington officials agree the city's highest priority should be economic development. 

But creating a vision for it—and defining what "economic development" means—led to a lively discussion during Saturday's city council goal-setting session at city hall. Facilitator John Iacoangeli, a principal with Ann Arbor-based Beckett & Raeder, encouraged officials to move beyond talk about specific strategies. 

"People look at (economic development) as a program, but in my opinion, it's more of a community mindset," he said. "You're not going to achieve all your goals in one year. You're not going to achieve your goals by necessarily employing somebody to help with economic development right away."

Still, officials had specific ideas in mind. Council member Greg Cowley pushed a destination strategy, creating the infrastructure—adding buildings and parking—and offering incentives that will encourage businesses to land in the community.

Council member JoAnne McShane felt the city should develop what it has, because there isn't money for new construction. She would also like to see efforts to attract medical community businesses. 

Council member Bill Galvin supported the creation of a volunteer economic development commission and stressed the need to include all of Farmington, not just the downtown, in the city's efforts. Mayor Tom Buck suggested improvements to the city's rental housing stock along with the addition of quality office space, to encourage more people to live and work in Farmington.

Council member Kristin Kuiken emphasized the need to address the decline of older shopping centers. She noted people drive past them at Farmington's gateways before getting to the heart of the city. 

As the conversation progressed, Iacoangeli kept steering officials back to thinking about larger ideas. 

"Economic development is a broader issue, and it doesn't involve money," he said, adding it involves leadership, vision and collaboration in order to be successful. "I believe you have leadership. ... You have the ability to collaborate. ... The key here is having the vision of where you think the community needs to be in the next 10 to 15 years."

Eventually, officials agreed on four major goals: draw and retain professionals and young families, create attractive and viable centers of business, formalize a marketing plan, and create strategic alliances. But in the discussion, they also aired some old grievances.

Branding studies on the shelf

While the city did a branding study about five years ago, it went largely unimplemented, because officials couldn't agree on a logo or tag line. The Farmington DDA also conducted a study as part of the Main Street downtown redevelopment program, which resulted in the "It's Happening!" tag line. 

Cowley, who served as DDA president from 2006-2009, said the DDA has done all the homework and analysis and "the city council's not on that page. We need to educate the city council on where the DDA is in the process." 

McShane argued the DDA's study hasn't gone anywhere, and Cowley said there were reasons for that. Iacoangeli suggested the study "never got bought into by the city council."

"I have a problem with that," Buck said. "This report was done for the DDA. ... We were aware of this. I don't think we had any issues with this, but this was a tool for the DDA to work with."

Buck noted that the DDA board has been "fractured" and has had trouble "finding consensus ... and it's because you're not forcing yourself into agreement. And in part, Greg, it's because it (was) your way or the highway sometimes on that board when you were president."

"(That's) because we could not come to even three objective goals to get to, and so I forced my vision on them, because we couldn't agree, period," Cowley replied. "And, in my mind, we did not have city council's support to execute."

"There was city council conceptual support," said McShane, who along with Buck, was serving on council at that time.

City manager Vince Pastue pointed our that the Main Street program encourages city councils and city managers to give the DDA some autonomy. Cowley did credit the city for restoring 100 percent of the Tax Increment Financing district funding to the DDA several years ago.

Iacoangeli said city officials need to understand, as a group, that vision requires consensus, because "this vision is going to cost you resources, money and staff time."

"You have to have consensus on just about everything that you do in order to be successful," he said. "If you have a branding program or marketing plan, it's got to be a consensus plan that everybody buys into."