The Arizona Solar Leadership Conference

I had a chance to attend the Arizona Solar Leadership Conference at the Downtown Phoenix Sheraton last week on a topic discussion on a strategic plan for the future. In the wake of expiring treasury grants, the pressure is on for the solar production community to get support from legislation.

Dr. Robert Lang opened up that morning with a keynote speech discussing the prevalence of solar power in the state of Arizona. The area stretching from the Phoenix area to the Mexican border is known as the sun corridor and is home to 9.1 million people. The state is next door to California, who is a prominent leader in legislation on renewable energies. Arizona can take this opportunity to be an exporter to California.

One of the biggest challenges for solar is that it is considered a fixed asset. It isn't like buying an Ipad, where it is easily replaced or upgraded. In order to be successful, a balance should be created when distributing; small scale for consumption, large scale for exporting.

The opening speaker was followed by a series of panels focusing on industry and infrastructure, finance and economic development, and regulation and policy. I was very interested in the finance and economic aspect. They discussed how certain state and federal incentives and risk taking is helpful in establishing something new. An example of this would be the railroad, and how it has benefited from having imminent domain, legal immunity, and protection from competition.

The finance and economic panel talked about current legislature affecting/influencing solar. SB1043 provides an income tax credit and favorable property tax declassification. SB1554 is a production-based incentive for companies making a sizable investment and are already producing energy. Additionally, there is a competitive package by the governor provided in a bill to increase job creation and diversify Arizona from a retirement community.

A bad economy allows time to consider the importance of solar and determine what is needed. First of all, capital is needed to finance projects. With states in deficits, this is a challenge. The education of investors and policy makers is key, as this will lead to strategic legislation. Some considerations that were brought included deciding what market Arizona should focus on (generation, energy-related manufacturing, or technological innovation), and what stakeholders (other than legislators) should also be included in the process of education.

It was a fascinating event to be at and listen to. I got to listen to the opinions of those sitting around me during our table-top discussions on the matter. I'm curious to see how things turn out and what strategic plan will look like as a result of their research. 

News reporter for the day

I was asked to write an article showcasing a local business in Marana for the town employee newsletter. Having not really written in the news reporter style before, this was quite the learning experience and I'm excited to see how it turns out.

The business assigned to me was Alicat Scientific. I was immediately intrigued, because I've seen the building plenty of times during my drive through Marana and liked the architecture of the building. I never really understood what they did, however, so I took this assignment as an opportunity to do just that.

At first glance I thought these were all parts to the DeLorean from Back to the Future. Upon closer inspection, however, these are a line of products developed by Alicat Scientific. Alicat creates mass flow meters and mass flow controllers. Typically used during the assembly line process of manufacturing, their meters are often used in the automobile and pharmaceutical industries. They measure the air flow through a pump so that when you apply a liquid coating to a product (like a car), the air flow is able to turn the liquid into an aerosol. Otherwise, you might get uneven gobs of coating.

Alicat Scientific picked Marana because of its ideal location for transportation. It's between Phoenix and Tucson's airports, and it's next to the freeway. Oftentimes their international clients will fly in to one of these airports, and it is less than an hour's drive to get to Marana. It also helps that Marana is very business-friendly, and Alicat has noticed and appreciated that aspect of operating in the town.

Excited for when the newsletter gets published and I get to read my story next week. It's great being able to work in a place that has me involved on a creative level.

Development talk in the Silverbell/Cortaro area

This morning, I met with Diamond Ventures, an Arizona real estate development and investment company, on a development in the works for the Cortaro/Silverbell area. From what I see from the plans so far, it sounds very interesting. The place for development is located near Crossroads Park and the Wheeler Taft Abbot Library. It is surrounded by commercial buildings on one side and faces residentail development to the west.

The main subject site is a future building for a call center, surrounded by retail and office buildings. Marana is currently not home to a call center, and within the past month the town has gotten several information requests for accommodations. Because there are no existing buildings that serve as a good foundation for a call center to plug into, this development will hopefully fill that void. There is certainly a demand for it.

The discussion at the meeting covered potential office and retail businesses that would make a good complement for the surrounding area. Services like childcare, charter schools, and higher education satelite campuses were suggested. I think the area is great for family-centered services. Josh made sure to point out the importance of making the park area a central focus, so it will be easily accessible to people driving through the area.

I'm excited to see some new development in Marana. Hopefully within the year we'll see something happen. :)

Performance Measurement

The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to advancing local government worldwide. They provide services to their members and to the local government community, and is a leader in developing ethical and transparent government organizations.

When providing services to the people, it is important for local governments to be able to track the efficiency of their services. One way to do this is to measure customer satisfaction. How satisfied do the customers have to be before a government entity considers their service to be efficient? What level of service is expected? And based off these measurements, is there room for improvement?

There are many ways governments have gone about measuring their performance. One technique that I studied in grad school was CitiStat, a system started in Baltimore that inspired many local governments to create a similar systems to track their services based on performance measurement. This is a complex system that requires heavy IT involvement, and is usually used in larger cities.

ICMA offers another way to measure performance for local governments. They have a Center for Performance Measurement that helps local governments measure and compare services for the purpose of making improvements. They look into several specific service areas, such as:

• Code Enforcement
• Facilities Management
• Fire and EMS
• Fleet Management
• Highway and Road Maintenance
• Housing
• Human Resources
• Information Technology
• Obesity Prevention
• Library Services
• Parks and Recreation
• Permits, Land Use and Plan Review
• Police Services
• Purchasing
• Refuse and Recycling
• Sustainability 
• Risk Management
• Youth Services

The Town of Marana is considering the benefits of doing a performance measurement through one of ICMA's programs, as it will be an excellent way to compare with neighboring communities, evaluate current performances, and establish goals for future improvement.

I have had a chance to begin investigating this program, and it sounds very interesting. A decision to proceed with it depends on the outcome of the council retreat next month, since it is important to evaluate the values of the community and decide what tools best fit the needs.

"Job's Aren't Enough"

In about a month, I will be facilitating a segment on economic development during the Department of Strategic Initiative's planning retreat. I began my research into the world of Marana economic development by looking at their Economic Roadmap. I then came across an interesting article on what economic development is in a Governing magazine, September 2011 issue. It was written by William Fulton, and while it appears to be titled "A Lousy Job" in their magazine print, the title online is "Jobs Aren't Enough". You can read the article here (Personally, I think "Jobs Aren't Enough" seems to be the more appropriate title).

Fulton describes how many times, economic developers tend to focus on just creating more jobs. That many times economic development comes down to how many jobs are brought in, and politicians will go to lengths to take credit for the quanitative increases.

Of course, it isn't just about the quantity, it's about the quality of jobs that are being brought in. And while numbers are what is often used to assess jobs in a given location, true economic development depends on the overall increased quality of the community. Fulton says "ultimately, successful economic development can't be measured only by the number of jobs or even the number of high-paying jobs that have been created."

So what is effective economic development?

Fulton explains by describing the needs of certain professionals that extends beyond just having "jobs". Entrepreneurs, for example, require a network of resources such as financiers, lawyers, and strategists. Different types of people need different types of jobs; professional, technical, service, etc. These kinds of subtleties cannot be typically defined by the word "jobs", as it requires much more. Fulton describes these subtleties as measured by "venture capital available to local comapanies, skills in the workforce, the value of local philanthropic endowments, the number of startups, and overall household income".

In the end, Fulton explains that yes jobs are included in the formula of economic development, but the focus should be on the overall enduring prosperity of the community, and this involves a complex network of resources and job availabilities.

Economic Road Map

After reading this article, I was curious about how Fulton's ideas and principles related to how Marana has outlined their economic strategy in their road map. I was pleased to see that it wasn't off-base at all. For one, Marana has outlined five target industries and 9 activity centers that will cater to specific needs. This includes transportation and logistics, tourism, regional industry cluster support, environmental technology, and bio-medical sciences. All areas would require a large variety of jobs that would extend to blue/white collar/professional/technical positions, and utilizes the surrounding environment as efficiently as possible (existing commercial hubs, airport, freeway I10, etc).

Additionally, there is the new Marana business development center that is currently going through its planning stages, and would be a contributing factor in creating that network that would support  entrepreneurs in the community.

It is pretty clear that Marana has put more thought in their economic development than just "increasing the number of jobs". It is important to promote a system that can grow off of itself. This way, Fulton says, "you are much likelier to build a solid foundation for the future".

Project updates

It has been an interesting and busy week so far. I've had a chance to delve deeper into the world of economic development, and get involved in several projects.

Prospect Information Forms

When a business from out of state is interested in expanding their business into the state of Arizona, they send a 'request for bids' essentially through Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA) in a Prospect Information Form (PIF). The form describes the capital investment amount, the building size they wish to have, and any other requirements necessary in a facility. The ACA then distributes this form to municipalities within the state, and the municipalities then choose to respond by sending back their 'bid' if they have the required amenities.

This particular PIF requested a site size of approximately 19,000 square feet for light industrial purposes. Using Arizona Prospector to see what available commercial sites were in Marana, I was able to narrow down to two prominent locations that would be appealing for a business to operate from. I then had to write up a response letter describing the two sites, explaining how Marana is an ideal place to do business in Arizona, and outlining incentives that the business would be eligible for if they came here. Two such incentives are that the town does not assess any municipal property tax, nor do they assess any impact fees for commercial or industrial development.

I sent off the response yesterday, so I'll be interested to see if anything comes of it. The business in question was looking at locating between Arizona or Virginia.

Employee Brief with the Town Manager

This week, Gilbert Davidson, the Town Manager, opened up several briefing sessions for employees to come and get caught up on what is going on with the Town of Marana. Beforehand, he asked me to put together the presentation for him. This was a great opportunity for me because it involved finding out what was happening in the Town, and putting it together in a cohesive manner for people to understand and be engaged.

Major topics include the budget, economic recovery plan, and upcoming projects. Upcoming projects would include:

• Grand opening of Sargent Controls headquarters in Marana
• Accenture Match Play coming back next spring
• Increase in development activity
• New police captain has joined our team
• The Wild Burro Trailhead has reached completion
• Employee newsletter overhaul, thanks to our new graphic designer

 I attend the employee brief later today, so I'm excited to see how the presentation turns out.

Photo Archiving

The Town of Marana has a growing collection of photos that have been donated by members of the community over the past several years. Having perused the current collection of physical photo prints for various projects with the Town, it has become more and more evident of the need to establish a set archiving system. This is no easy task as currently multiple people are working with the photo collection for their respective projects and, particularly in the world of digital photos, some people have access to photos that others may not know about.

Several challenges arise from this; a lack of accountability over who has access to what files, an inaccurate depiction of the full collection in existance, no established database describing where the photos came from, who donated them, or what the photos are of (pictures of people, landscapes, buildings, etc).

Luckily, the Town is still in the early stages of their photo library that this can be easily curtailed and transformed into a comprehensive photo archiving system that will make future projects all the more easier to perform. Having run into several barriers in my Marana Heritage project, I've decided to look further into what was necessary for improving the process so as to make my project smoother as well as will assist others in theirs.

First of all, the current collection has a fascinating aray of historical events specific to the Marana area. This includes captures of the old Marana downtown before I10 demolished it, farm production in the 1940's, school children in the 1920's, and old family photos of individuals who played prominant roles in Marana's growing government.

It is important to establish a filing system with the current collection that then can be built upon with future donations from the community. To get an idea of what to expect, I decided to contact the Arizona Historical Society and see what they did for accepting donations to see if it would shed any light on what the current archiving structure would require.

While I initially thought that a photo release and description form would suffice for this project (and therefore open the door for any donation to come in, which is similar to what happens now), I realized that there's more to beginning an archive than getting permissions and finding out what the photographs were of. The Arizona Historical Society has a process where a committee considers each of the donations, and decides if it will fit the needs of the library. A form accompanies this process to aid the committee in understanding the photo so then a discussion can be held on its relevance. The next step is actually acquiring  information from the donator and establishing permissions so that once the photo is in the library, the Society (and the donator) are aware of how the photo may be used and all the legal implications that come with it.

While any photo pertaining to Marana history might be considered important to the Town, I've realized during the duration of my photo projects that many times it's about the photo format. For official printed publications, the image must be original, clear, and of high quality. If they are scanned/digital images, they are usually preferred to be at 300 dpi in TIFF format, which allows for a non-compressed image that can then be transformed into any format.

An initial screening process of donations might be very helpful in determining what files on hand meet these qualifications. If it doesn't, at least we will be aware of that. It will also help determine how the photo will be filed away and how it can be recalled for specific purposes. All these considerations can be accounted for before a photo is accepted, and then once it is, permissions can be established.

Most importantly, I think there should be a scanning system so that every physical photo in the library is accounted for in digital format. This would make a lot of jobs a lot easier in the areas of searching and obtaining specific images.

Hopefully these things can be achieved, particularly soon while the physical collection is still manageable. There are so many amazing photos in the library, and it would be great if they were all accounted for in a great archiving system.