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<P>Today's Tribune article about the MCA forum held last night is a great
summary of the choices facing Moscow voters in this council election. Vote
for the future with MCA endorsed candidates and Moscow will aim for both
maintaining its uniqueness and attracting more entrepreneurial businesses.
My thanks to the MCA board for sponsoring this forum.
BL</P>---------------- </H1>
<H1>Is high-tech the key to Moscow's future?</H1>
<H2>Forum sponsored by Moscow Civic Association brings together business and
community leaders</H2>
<P>By David Johnson <BR>October 23, 2007</P>
<P><BR>MOSCOW - The economic future of Moscow will depend more on attracting and
retaining high-tech companies than encouraging more housing and retail business,
members of a panel agreed Monday night.</P>
<P>"In the basic form, economic development is jobs," said B.J. Swanson, vice
president of AmericanWest Bank here and chairwoman of the board of directors for
Gritman Medical Center. "But not just any job." She said jobs should provide
enough money to offer a reasonably comfortable living.</P>
<P>Robin Woods, president of Alturas Analytics located in Moscow, said 100
percent of her bio-tech business comes from outside Idaho, most of it from the
San Francisco Bay Area. Yet, she and her partners opted to locate here because
of the quality of life that's available</P>
<P>"Probably it would have been better to locate in San Francisco or Seattle,
but with Fed Ex and the fiber-optic that we have ... and with the Internet, the
world is flat and we can conduct our business here," Woods said.</P>
<P>David Alexander, a UI graduate and CEO of Ivus Industries, a small business
he decided to locate here, said Moscow is an ideal location for entrepreneurs to
tap into a high-tech labor pool that spins off both the University of Idaho and
neighboring Washington State University in Pullman.</P>
<P>"What the business is, is a focus on extremely fast-charging rechargeable
products," Alexander said of his startup company. He said the company, which has
four employees, is currently developing a fast-charging flashlight.</P>
<P>Judy Brown, an economist and director of the Idaho Center on Budget and Tax
Policy, said research shows if a community creates a good living environment,
jobs will come. "The key thing that attracts" entrepreneurs and businesses to an
area, Brown said, is quality of life, not tax breaks. </P>
<P>"Quality of life and the ability to work either from home or near home," she
said, "are the two really key things in deciding where people locate those kinds
of businesses."</P>
<P>The forum, sponsored by the Moscow Civic Association, comes two weeks prior
to a city council election here that many say hinges on attitudes about economic
growth. Bruce Livingston, president of the MCA, said the forum was called in
part to dispel the notion that the MCA is anti-economic growth. He said the MCA
is "pro business, pro growth and pro community."</P>
<P>About 30 people, including several council candidates, attended the forum at
the 1912 Center.</P>
<P>Swanson said Moscow needs to wean itself from a housing and retail fixation
about growth. "Our voracious appetite to approve subdivision after subdivision,
to build high-end homes, has run out of high-end people to occupy them," Swanson
said, adding that new retail businesses seem to be only replacing old ones.</P>
<P>"Over-built housing and replacement retail is not a good economic model,"
Swanson said.</P>
<P>According to statistics presented at the forum, Moscow has a population of
about 22,350 and UI employs about 2,870 people. Gritman employs 431, with the
Moscow School District and Wal-Mart, by comparison, employing 350 and 207
people, respectively.</P>
<P>Swanson said it's time for the community to get back on the right economic
track with the primary focus on good-paying jobs and a secondary focus on
housing and retail business. "And as always, focus on anything that will help
the University of Idaho. They've carried us for years. It's time for us to get
out and carry ourselves."</P>
<P>All the panelists said Moscow city officials and members of the city council
have been extremely pro-business.</P>
<P>"Our intent is to hire WSU and University of Idaho graduates," Woods said
about her expanding business. She said that all but one of the 30 people working
at Alturas Analytics are from the two universities. Woods said it's important
for Moscow to complete it's rewrite of the comprehensive plan, and to keep tech
businesses together to encourage more business.</P>
<P>"I think it's important to have kind of a think-tank atmosphere," she said,
"kind of a campus atmosphere in your tech park. So I don't think it's a good
idea to scatter things here and there."</P>
<P>Swanson pointed out Alturas Technology Park, located on the southeastern edge
of town, had modest beginnings, but now is home to around 150 jobs that have
annual salaries of $50,000 and up. "And those jobs really contribute back to the
community," she said.</P>
<P>---</P>
<P><EM>Johnson may be contacted at deveryone@potlatch.com or (208)
883-0564.<BR></EM></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>