Henry Luke- Newsletter #22-COMMUNITY VISIONING RESULTS

May-June 2001

LAKELAND, FL – The Metro Lakeland Vision process has Vision Partners and Alliances working on many strategies. They are focusing on meeting the annual measurement of the Key Benchmarks. Following is a report of some of the progress presented at the May 8^th Town Hall meeting.

§ Mentoring- Mentoring and parental involvement continues to be a focus to improve education. Doris Lyons, Lakeland Vision’s Executive Director said, “It all comes back to education.” Improve education and the teen pregnancy rate will drop, the graduation rate will increase, the work force will be better prepared, the average salary will go up and high-tech industry will come. More than 600 new mentors were recruited to mentor more than 1000 students. The graduation rate increased 2% in 2000.

§ Annexation-Ron Clark, the Lakeland Vision Chair said, “the Important thing about the Vision is that it provides justification for action. Using the information from the Vision resulted in the City of Lakeland moving forward with the successful annexation drive.” The Benchmark for five years of annexation is to grow the city population to 100,000.

§ Neighborhood Associations-A Lakeland Vision Strategic Alliance was formed with our neighborhood associations. The Alliance is working to bring all neighborhood associations together around the entire county. A Neighborhood Association Conference is planned for August 18^th with many municipalities plus our county neighborhood associations participating. They are expecting over 500 people to participate in this conference and participate in the training programs.

§ Adopt-a-Lake-The City of Lakeland is working with an Infrastructure Alliance to bring neighborhood associations, civic groups, churches, businesses, etc. together in an adopt-a-lake effort to improve the quality of our lakes.

§ High Tech Initiative-The Lakeland Economic Development Council, Chamber of Commerce and

the City of Lakeland along with several high tech businesses already located in the Lakeland area are developing Action Steps to develop and recruit more high tech businesses, improve our image, build up our technology work force and create competitive technology office parks.

§ Focus on Leadership-A program is being adopted from a successful minority leadership program in Gainesville, FL. The program identifies and trains minority leaders and encourages them to become involved in the community.

§ Outdoor Sculpture Competition-In response to a Quality of Life Strategy, the Polk County Museum of Art and the City of Lakeland organized the Florida Outdoor Sculpture Competition. Winners were announced March 15, 2001 and will be exhibited in downtown Lakeland for a year.

§ Key Benchmark Review, Revise and Refocus -A major part of the May 8^th review was the result from the racial harmony survey. The scientific survey ranked four areas for racial harmony. A score of “one” indicates harmony. Education ranked 2.38, social 2.26, Health 2.23 and Jobs 1.79. The Benchmark Teams will now set an expected annual measurement of change to move the index for each area to “one’. To access the May 8, 2001 Key Benchmark Power Point go to http://www.lukevision.com and then to “Community Visioning Resources”. (For Metro Lakeland web site hyperlink to http://www.lakelandvision.com/)

MOBILE, AL – In our March 2001 newsletter we quoted John Davis Envision Co-chair on the funding crisis in Mobile County Schools and the need for action. On May 15^th Mobile County and City voters approved a property tax and sales tax increase that will raise $24 million per year for school operations. The amount will increase as property values and sales increase. The voters had rejected three proposed tax increases since 1988. This time, school officials said that all high school sports and extra curricular activities would be eliminated without the extra tax money. This time the tax increase passed with about 56% support. For access, hyperlink to http://mobilechamber.org/development/

MEMPHIS, TN-The Memphis Biotech Foundation, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) and Baptist Memorial HealthCare will become partners in the UT-Baptist Research park, a project that will extend Baptist’s traditional mission in the Medical Center. The Biotech Foundation’s plans call for a new campus integrating research, teaching and biomedical development. The proximity of the Research Park to UTHSC will create unique collaborative opportunities for UTHSC and its academic and research activities.

“Our vision is to establish the Memphis region as an internationally recognized center for the development and commercialization of biomedical technology’, said J.R. “Pitt” Hyde, founder of the Memphis Biotech Foundation.

The foundation’s launch follows a yearlong effort by MEMPHIS 2005, the City of Memphis, Shelby County Government, the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce, the Community Foundation, the regional Governor’s Alliance for Excellence and the Memphis Regional Biomedical Initiative Task Force to corral the community’s biotechnology resources and to accelerate the industry’s development in Memphis. The UT-Baptist Research Park will include an incubation program to develop new businesses in biotechnology and biomedicine and foster the creation of new jobs.

The gift by Baptist is valued conservatively at $40 million and is the largest in history to the University of Tennessee system. It is among the largest gifts in the history of higher education.

http://www.memphischamber.com/2005/index.html

RICHMOND, VA-Semiconductor Expanison-Infineon Technologies Richmond, formerly known as White Oak Semiconductor, has launched an expansion to outfit a new module with 300mm equipment. At full build-out, the expansion is expected to create more that 1,100 jobs, bringing total employment to approximately 2,800 people, at a cost of $1.1 billion.

The Greater Richmond semiconductor complex has received “Top Fab of the Year” honors and has established itself as a work-class manufacturer of memory devices for personal and notebook computers, work stations, servers and communications application.

Richmond’s Downtown image has impressive change-The latest Metro Poll conducted by VCU’s Center for Urban Development shows that 75 % of regional residents surveyed see downtown Richmond as clean, and 97% believe that the “Clean & Safe’ program is important to the downtown area. Only 30% of those surveyed viewed crime as a serious problem downtown, compared with 60% in 1998. An impressive 82% said they feel safe or somewhat safe downtown.

More than $500 million in new development is underway downtown, more than 1,300 new housing units are under construction or have been completed since 1995, and another 490 are in the initial phase of development. The vacancy rate for all classes of office space in 2000 was less that 14%, compared with more than 25 % in 1990. The Class A vacancy was 7%, down from 18.5 % in 19990.

SAGINAW, MI-In an historic vote on May 8, 2001, Saginaw County citizens voted by a 53% margin to take over the Civic Center on July 1 and rename it “The Saginaw County Event Center.” The county vote authorized taxes to renovate and operate the center. A private firm, SMG of Philadelphia, will manage the Event Center. Thirty years ago, the City of Saginaw built the Civic Center. The Saginaw City population declined by 1/3 in 30 years and the city could no longer afford the annual subsidy. In 2000, the city told Saginaw County, there must be an alternative or the Civic Center would have to be closed. An Alliance quickly developed a temporary support plan until the end of June 2001 and county citizens approved the long-term plan on May 8, 2001.

Davenport University-After signing on as a Saginaw County Vision 2020 partner, Davenport University reviewed the final Vision document in relation to its own strategic plan. It was evident that the need for training in the area of technology was prominent throughout the Vision plan. Since DU offers several programs in technical areas and since DU had several initiatives in our strategic plan related to technology, DU accelerated the pace for completing some of those initiatives. Three initiatives have been completed. They are: 1) DU signed an articulation agreement with Delta College, the local community college. Both a 3 + 1 and a 1 + 1 agreement were signed. The seamless transfer allows Delta College students to complete associate and bachelor degree options. Delta was particularly interested in allowing their students to complete the programs at Davenport that included the Cisco Networking training through DU's Cisco Networking Academy. 2) DU developed a co-op agreement with XO, a local networking company, to allow students to work in the field while completing networking degrees. EDS has recently approached DU to develop a similar co-op program. 3) DU has now become a testing center for Cisco, Microsoft, and Novell. DU will also be adding a bachelor degree with a CIS concentration in e-commerce to its course offerings in the fall.
The impetus for all of these initiatives came from Davenport’s strong commitment to the Saginaw County Vision 2020 project. Access the Saginaw County Vision 2020 web site at http://www.saginawcountyvision2020.org/

BEA DATA UPDATE-The US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Econ0mic Analysis released the 1999 estimates for per capita income, earnings and jobs by counties, MSAs and states. Go to www.lukevison.com and then to “Community Visioning Resources” for a BEA hyperlink.

AIR QUALITY UPDATE- The American Lung Association released a report in May 2001 on America’s most ozone- polluted cities and counties.. Go to www.lukevison.com and then to “Community Visioning Resources” for a ALA hyperlink.

NAICS REPLACES SIC-The “North American Industry Classification System” has replaced the “Standard Industrial Classification” System. There are several new classifications that replace the extremely large “services” sector and provide a more rational grouping of industries. For example: information; transportation & warehousing; financing & insurance; real estate & rental & leasing; healthcare & social assistance; arts, entertainment, & recreation; accommodation & food services. There is “Bridge between NAICS and SIC at http://www.census.gov/epcd/ec97brdg/

The first data using NAICS is available for all counties for 1998 &1999. For a hyperlink, go to www.lukevision.com and to “Community Visioning Resources” for a County Business Pattern hyperlink.

WILKES, NC-Wilkes 2020 had their annual Town Hall meeting to celebrate and review, revise and refocus on May 24, 2001. http://www.wilkes.org/vision

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Henry Luke