Does anyone here listen?

After the city council wrestled Tuesday night with the question of how to cram nine nominees into a seven-person Economic Development and Tourism Board (the first seven on the list of nominees were named to the board and the last two, Jim Hough and Jo Fenety, were named "ex officio" members), Mayor Pro Tem David Wilson posed the following hypothetical to board chair Brian Ziegler, the only person returning from the last ED&T gang:

"An industry approaches us and your committee is the first one activated, that’s the first contact. The industry doesn’t want to be identified by name. They don’t want to be identified that they’re interested. They don’t want to identify also that they have competitors. How do you see this board operating? Would it be the first contact? Would it be a discussional item? Would it be, along with the city manager and a development director in attendance, a kind of a group that would lay it out and get support for it within the group before it’s presented to council or presented to anyone? In your view, how would that play out?"

Forget for the moment a person should never try to answer a hypothetical question. That’s why such questions are not permitted in courtroom examinations. Let me try to place Wilson’s hypothetical in context. Less than 30 minutes before Wilson posed the question, the council heard a recommendation from the firm it hired to develop its economic development strategic plan that the city rename and rebrand its Economic Development and Tourism Board and give that newly rebranded board the assignment of recruiting targeted businesses to Kyle. Which to me, sounds like a great idea. It sort of reminds me of that popular cartoon depicting the buzzard sitting on the telephone pole telling his fellow vulture "Patience, hell. I want to kill something." Yes, instead of waiting around hoping some business someday might express interest in doing something here, or even more improbably, the Greater San Marcos Partnership might dump a high-tech manufacturing firm in our laps, let’s go out and round up the usual suspects. As far as those businesses that might express interest in Kyle on their own, without any sort of recruitment effort, let those prospects deal directly and immediately with the Economic Development personnel on the city’s staff. In other words, assign each function specific individual tasks instead of everyone involved in economic development tripping over each other all trying to do the same thing in their own way.

So, in my mind, the way I would have liked to have seen Wilson’s hypothetical addressed would have been something like this:

"That’s an issue we would need to address when the specific situation actually arises, But as you just heard in the economic development presentation moments ago, I believe our committee should concentrate on four specific tasks. First, identifying a broad range of companies that fit within the general parameters of those categories that were recommended to us. Second, identifying within those groups those companies that are the most likely to want to establish a business in Kyle and those that would fit our future growth and comprehensive plans. Third, develop individualized strategies designed to convince each of those companies to establish a presence in Kyle. And fourth, visiting those companies to deliver our sales pitch."

That’s the answer I would have loved to hear. That was the answer that would make me believe the city might be actually thinking about getting serious about business development and creating more and better jobs right here in Kyle. Is that anywhere close to the answer Ziegler gave? Judge for yourself.

"About two or three years ago we had an economic development opportunity come to the committee desk," Ziegler said. "They were presenting a 380 agreement (Agreements that enable cities to provide incentives to encourage developers to build in their jurisdiction. They are called 380 agreements because they can be found in Chapter 380 of the Texas Government Code.) At that time there was not a single person — I think there was six or seven members of the committee at that time — had no idea what a 380 agreement was. So not only did we have to negate the presentation, then we had to learn what a 380 agreement was over the next month. There are so many things the common citizen isn’t going to understand when it comes to economic development. I think one of the priorities when we tried to realign this board was to get people who would have an understanding of economic development moving forward. We need to remain competitive geographically and without having the expertise in place I think we’re going to get left behind. So, to answer you question, if this was brought to us, I think we would kind of feel the candidate up front, kind of have a discussion with him around whatever project they want to put in place. And at that point we can make some serious recommendations to council."

It made me want to stand up and scream "Is anyone around here actually listening and understanding what your economic development experts just recommended to you minutes before or have you just decided to ignore their recommendations entirely and wait for more fast food restaurants to set up shop in Kyle?"