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Mayor Lyons: How to make Dowagiac a better place to live, work and raise a family
Published 12:21pm Tuesday, November 24, 2009I’d first like to thank everyone who took the time to respond to my recent mailing that went to every registered voter in Dowagiac who voted in the last city election, which was in 2007
I sent out just over 450 cards and had a response rate of over 7 percent, which is outstanding for this type of mailing. Many of the cards contained multiple suggestions, so all in all, we had over 50 good suggestions.
As expected in these tough economic times, “more jobs” was the most frequently mentioned concern. There’s no question that Dowagiac has been hit hard by the closing of several of our major local employers, including ICG, National Copper and Contech.
As painful as this is to say, it’s my opinion that this represents a fundamental shift in area employment patterns. Each one of these employers had its roots in the auto industry. That industry has changed fundamentally, and when it comes back, as it always has and will again this time, it will be a very different business than what it was just a few years ago.
It would be great if I’m wrong, but I’m not expecting those jobs to return to this area. More likely, they’ll go to southern states or overseas.
The businesses that I’ve talked to that are healthy and plan to stay in Dowagiac have relatively modest growth plans. The likelihood of Dowagiac attracting a major industry that will employ hundreds of people is slim. Most businesses of that scale are looking to locate close to the interstate highway system and larger population centers.
When it comes to our assets, the railroad is a good one. It was instrumental in getting Ameriwood back in town and it’s proven helpful in our efforts to market the former National Copper facility.
We have two very capable economic development persons in Vickie Phillipson, who’s focused on our downtown business district, and Cindy LaGrow, who concentrates on the manufacturing sector. These people, along with City Manager Kevin Anderson and myself, work very closely with all existing area employers and prospective employers.
Our industrial park is also an asset. It’s the best one in the area and we recently made changes to its use covenants that make it easier and less expensive to build in the park.
City Council is very supportive of economic growth and has routinely extended all legal and appropriate incentives to persons and companies that want to create jobs or expand our tax base. I believe what job growth we’re going to see in the traditional manufacturing sector is going to be relatively modest and is going to be generated by existing companies expanding or new, small start-ups from local entrepreneurs who will employ a relatively small workforce.
On the positive side, Ameriwood has returned about 100 jobs to its operation and is poised for more growth.
Creative Foam recently consolidated its plants and moved about 40 jobs to Dowagiac.
Deerpath Recyclers is expanding and planning to add up to 10 new jobs.
And, as the economy improves, I’m confident that these and other employers will continue to grow and expand their employment. However, it’s important to understand that the days of a Round Oak or a Rudy’s having 1,000+ employees are over. It’s a very different world today than it was in their heyday.
The other job opportunity that is growing significantly is in the field of medical care. With the new Donald Lyons Health Center, new hospital emergency room and new nursing home, well over 125 jobs either have been or will be created in the health care field in Dowagiac.
And it most certainly will be a growth field as the “baby boom” generation continues to age and people choose to use local health care providers.
The key to finding a job in that field is going to be education. Eventually, relatively few persons in that field are going to be doctors or nurses who require years of advanced education. Virtually everyone is going to have to be computer literate and most will have to have some advanced training in health care. Fortunately, Southwestern Michigan College has a variety of courses in computer literacy, medical technology and supervision. Some or all of these skills are going to be important in tomorrow’s medical workplace. Check with SMC and see what’s best for you.
I don’t know of a shop floor or office anyplace that isn’t managed by computers. SMC requires that every employee, from the grounds department to the president’s office, be computer literate. Love them or hate them, computers are here to stay.
At Lyons Industries, we’re putting out significantly more dollars of product with significantly fewer people than we were 10 years ago. The same can be said of virtually every business with which I’m familiar, and it’s all because of computers. If you don’t live with them every day and treat them as partners in running your business, you’re probably not going to survive.
Between the three employers I mentioned and the medical care providers in Dowagiac, 250 jobs have been created or will be created in the next 12 months.
The second most popular suggestion was improved recreational opportunities. These ranged from the always popular movie theater to more things for kids to do and more things for seniors to do. Some specific suggestions were a teen center in the former Woolworth building and a swimming pool.
These are all excellent suggestions, but, unfortunately, they take more money to build and run than what we have. It’s sometimes suggested that we could do these things with “volunteers.” My experience with volunteer projects is that they work well when given a defined task with limited time duration. Spend a weekend to build a new playground or clean up a vacant lot or sell candy at the football games or have a fundraiser for a worthy cause are all good examples of volunteerism that works well.
What doesn’t work well with volunteers, in my experience, is a routine job that has to be done every day to a certain standard without fail. If you’re running a teen center, that has to be open every school day from 3 to 8 p.m. You have to have paid staff that can be managed and held accountable for results, and the City of Dowagiac simply doesn’t have the money to do that. What we are exploring is the possibility of partnering with the adjoining townships to study the feasibility of creating a recreational district along the boundaries of the school district and see if by pooling our resources we could create more recreational opportunities collectively for more people than what any of us could do individually.
Several persons noted the poor conditions of some of our streets. We’re well aware of these problems, but given our reduction in state revenue sharing, reductions in state aid for streets and sidewalks and reduction in local property tax values and, hence, revenue, the streets are deteriorating faster than we can afford to fix them. It costs about $80 to $90 per foot, or almost $500,000 a mile to repave a city street, and we have almost 40 miles of streets in Dowagiac.
We are aggressively working to reduce our fixed costs at City Hall. This is requiring that we question and analyze everything, from how we buy pencils to how we provide police and fire protection services. Our goal is to bring our expenses into line with our revenue with the least reduction in services so we can get back to a more appropriate level of street and sidewalk maintenance.
Another one that is an irritant to many people is pet owners who mistreat their pets, let them run loose or don’t clean up after them. We’ve developed a process at City Hall for contacting these people and enlisting their cooperation in being responsible pet owners. If we fail to get their cooperation, we’ll work with Cass County Animal Control to confiscate their pet and get it into a more appropriate environment. If you have a problem of this sort, please call City Hall at 782-2195 and ask for Patty in the Police Department. They’ll help you resolve your problem.
Other suggestions included a Walmart store, increased drug enforcement activities and a downtown public restroom.
We’re on Walmart’s radar screen. Several years ago they optioned some land in the Dowagiac area, but decided the size of the market at that time didn’t justify a store. Since then, we’ve heard nothing more from them.
Cass County has one of the largest, most aggressive drug interdiction task forces for any county of our population in the upper Midwest. Their efforts are extensive and aggressive, but there are only five officers to cover the entire county – almost 520 square miles – and there are literally thousands of people in Cass County involved in illegal drugs in some way, shape or form.
One of the best ways to get increased enforcement activity in your area is to provide the enforcement agency with as much information as possible. You can do this by calling 1-800-462-9328, the Cass County tip line. All information will be kept strictly confidential.
We’ve looked for years at building a downtown restroom, but an appropriately-sized restroom that would withstand all the abuse suffered by public restrooms is more expensive than we can afford – approximately $60,000. While it’s not an ideal solution, we’ve kept City Hall open for some festivals and brought in portable restrooms for others. Also, several years ago we had a detailed study done of what retail ventures Dowagiac could support. We specifically asked that a movie theater be considered. The consulting firm’s opinion was that our market wasn’t large enough to justify the cost of a movie theater.
I hope these comments have helped to provide some insights into your city government. If at any time you have any questions or concerns, or wish to offer a suggestion, don’t hesitate to call City Hall and ask for the city manager or contact any of your local elected officials. They’re a great group of people who have the best interests of the community at heart and are always glad to hear from you.
Don Lyons is mayor of Dowagiac.
WITH ALL THE WASTED STIMULUS DOLLARS GOING TO PLACES THAT DONT EXIST AND CREATING JOBS FOR PEOPLE THAT DONT EXIST YOU WOULD THINK WE COULD GRAB SOME OF THAT DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE WITH IT
I concur practically most everything Mayor Lyons has done and commented on– very well planning for sure. Again, he is correct that larger employers of 1,000 or so will not probably locate here and he is smart to attempt to attract the smaller ones that can grow here. Most of Dowagiac’s challenges are not our own doing, but stem from Michigan problems of being a high cost state from which to operate including that of a mandatory union work force state, every stripe of taxing, and workmen’s comp that in total, far exceed those operating costs in other states both in the South and even next door into Indiana. As Detroit and unions continue to run this State, it will continue to be slow drip of lost economic activity which makes things very tough locally where Dowagiac borders a business friendly state.