Harbor Springs and Economic Development

[XLFD]

Here is an inspiring story of one person making a difference.

 

Today is the day the media has dubbed "Small Business Saturday" to encourage holiday shoppers to buy at places other than Walmart, Meijer, K-mart, etc.  It also encourages them to shop locally.  These are both great concepts and they should not be confined to just a day.  Small, local businesses have a lot to offer, but it can be very easy to overlook them when the superstores offer megadeals this time of year on things that you simply must have. 

 

If you look at the above video, you will see what a difference one person can make in revigorating a community's businesses.  Stephanie Baker moved away from Harbor Springs for a few years, came back, and noticed some store fronts were empty, and downtown wasn't bustling as much as it once had.  She wanted to change that so she started what has been a successful campaign.

 

The self-employed professional photographer started a community campaign, called "Show Your Love, Support Our Area, Shop Locally." She wanted to bring awareness and unity to the "mom and pop" stores and to combat the loss of the sense of community amongst the locals.

 

Stephanie started a Facebook page along with T-shirt and poster campaigns, investing her own money, to promote local businesses so that now the heart over the Little Traverse Bay area is a symbol of nearly every Harbor Springs and Petoskey storefront.  Local shoppers make small businesses survive, and people like Stephanie give hope for those downtowns.

 

One may ask, doesn't Harbor Springs have a Downtown Development Authority (DDA) like Ludington.  The answer is yes.  The HS DDA until a July meeting this year existed and had went inactive since 2003  Petoskey News 7-14-11 a fact confirmed by the City's website which archives exactly one meeting in 2003 by the DDA (which is not available)  HS DDA minutes.  The HS DDA met and had some ideas, but there is no indication of any action taken since that gabfest  Petoskey News 7-19-11.  It appears as if the 11 member strong Harbor Springs DDA consisting of City Officials and business leaders were content to allow stores to close and community unity to evaporate as they sat on the sidelines.

 

The Ludington DDA has plenty of money to work with each year, and that amount will continue to grow, almost all coming from local taxpayers.  But over one-fourth of that money is used for unexplained 'administrative fees', over another quarter goes for supplies and entertainment for a handful of events that take place in the downtown.  Almost all of the rest goes for expenses which a reasonable person might wonder why public funds are being used for such purposes. 

 

Simple, organic solutions originating from private citizens are the key to the success of any local economy.  DDAs work against this by suppressing this energy and by encouraging local businesses to look for handouts and favors from the local government at the expense of the general taxpayer.

[Willy]

Good post X.

[Marty Redman]

I agree whole-heartedly and love the continueing theme about the DDA and economic development and how they are as affective as the department of education, the department of energy, and ...  ... oops.

[XLFD]

I think you would be referring to Ludington City Hall as your third entry, Marty.

[Dave]

Before moving to my current residence, I lived in Petoskey.. never went over to Harbor Springs very often but do sort of remember when I did go over there that there were some store fronts empty. Good to see that they have been able to do something about the situation there. In this economy and with the challenge coming from the big box stores, to be able to have any success at all is impressive.

[XLFD]

I caught the above video when it was shown on the 29/8 local news at eleven about a week ago.  Back when I was a kid growing up in Scottville, their City Hall for the most part kept out of business-related things and the town prospered, and there were loyalties between the people and the businesses.  In the interim we had the introduction of the box/chain stores and government involvement into managing downtown areas.

Now taxes are as high as ever, and they have two public officials, the Scottville Main Street Manager Heather Landis and the Ludington/Scottville Community Development Director Heather Venzke who have some control over what businesses will pass and fail, and taxpayer money to spend figuring it out.  It is not a good environment for keeping or attracting anchor businesses even if they get their 22k gold way faring signs.