A new board announced by Mayor Jim Strickland will focus on setting goals for jobs and business growth and monitoring accountability to goals set with the Greater Memphis Chamber and EDGE, Strickland said Tuesday.
“The board will only meet a couple, two, three times a year,” Strickland said in a telephone interview with The New Tri-State Defender. “What it will do is set our goals at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year determine whether or not we’ve met our goals and do it in a public way so the public can see.
“It is really a board for accountability,” he said. “Frankly that’s a piece that’s been missing, and I think all of us need to be held accountable.”
The group’s first meeting likely will be in January and will include representatives of the city, county, the chamber and EDGE (Economic Development Growth Engine for Memphis and Shelby County.)
One of the keys will be generating more and better data that will allow all of the entities to make smarter decisions, Strickland said. That means more staffing at the Chamber and EDGE.
For instance, at the beginning of the year, data is crucial in deciding how many jobs the city should seek to generate for that year.
“There are people out there who know the economy who can research this and figure out what a realistic goal is,” Strickland said. “The board needs to set our goals, how many jobs we should create, how much total development dollars wise. …EDGE and the chamber will have to hire more researchers because all these goals have to be based on research and data.”
Strickland would like goals set the first quarter of next year and envisions the chamber and EDGE continuing to function as each has regarding the nuts and bolts of business, individual business deals and projects.
“….(T)he chamber is going to lead the sales, EDGE has to close the deals, Mayor Harris and I need to build a work force. We all play a role in it.”
Harris – via a press release – said he was “supportive of Mayor Strickland’s efforts to bring jobs and investment to Memphis. Shelby County government is happy to play our part as a partner to the city and support this great work to update the approach to economic development.”
Beverly Robertson, the chamber’s interim president/CEO, said economic development benefits the broader market place and that it makes sense for two entities or organizations to work together to achieve the goals.
“It’s a much better way to leverage the capacity of both organizations. Identifying the goals and planning how they will each contribute to achieving them.”
Robertson said it would be important for the city and the chamber to continue the programs they have to assist small and minority businesses, adding that it also would be important to assess the effectiveness of the programs and to accelerate and fortify them.
“We do know that small and minority businesses are the types of businesses that are really growing and make up a large portion of the economy. …We really need to make sure that we’re serious about the growth of minority and small businesses. It can only be beneficial for the whole city as far as our efforts to attract new businesses.”
Strickland took note of the city’s 800 Initiative and its focus on growing African-American-owned businesses.
“We know from census data that there are about 800 African-American-owned businesses in Memphis that have between one employee and approximately five … (O)ur goal with the 800 initiative is to grow those 800 businesses, the number of employees they have. …
“Yes, we want to grow African-American and women-owned businesses here and there is a way to measure that.”
City Council Chairman Berlin Boyd said he and Greater Memphis Chamber Board President Richard Smith spearheaded the idea for the new board about a year ago, with the goal of providing a level of accountability from the chamber and EDGE.
“It is not meant to be another level of bureaucracy,” Boyd said in a telephone interview with The New Tri-State Defender. He said the aim is to make the process of recruitment and retention of jobs and businesses simpler and easier.
The new board, Boyd said, should help minority- and women-owned businesses and all small businesses by increasing capacity and business opportunities with all factions of the business community working closer together.
Al Bright, chairman of EDGE, called the new board “a great idea as we tie together EDGE, The Greater Memphis Chamber, the City of Memphis and Shelby County with respect to how we recruit and retain businesses throughout our community. …There will be more public transparency and accountability in the process.”
Melvin Jones, executive director of the Memphis Business Contracting Consortium and publisher of the Black Business Directory, said he did not understand why the panel is needed.
“I cannot see where the vision and mission of this new board is going to deviate in any substantial manner from the vision and mission of the city, county and EDGE,” Jones said. “…(W)hat is the point? What is the goal?”
Jones said he saw nothing in the announcement about the board regarding help for the African-American business community.
Bright said the new panel would help recruit and retain small, minority and women-owned businesses.
“All of us are working hard to improve those numbers on a regular basis,” he said. “By us all working together you would think we could make the oblivious 1.8 percent of years ago to higher numbers.”
Reid Dulberger, president and CEO of Edge and chief economic development officer for Memphis and Shelby County, described the new panel as a “giant step” forward from a memorandum of understanding that the Chamber and EDGE entered into in 2014.
He said the memorandum “divvied up our economic worlds and made sure we didn’t step on each others toes.”
“This new board will be the public face of our economic development efforts… The hope and expectation is that we’re creating a system out of a couple of desperate entities that work together every day but don’t have a coordinating link.”
A spokesman for County Mayor Harris said Shelby County Commissioner Willie Brooks would be a point person for the county on the new board.
Brooks, who chaired the commission’s ad hoc committee on EDGE, said the advisory board has not been named.
“I am in support of the joint venture because all of us are stakeholders when it comes to economic development. …Hopefully it will break down any silos that exist between the stakeholders by coming together and establishing objectives by which we can measure our progress.”
