Barrow should learn from Athens’ development problems

But as the community thinks about economic development issues, Barrow Countians should also pay attention to Athens-Clarke County’s development problems and learn from that community’s mistakes.

Two weeks ago, Georgia Chamber of Commerce CEO Chris Clark told Athens leaders they should go behind closed doors to sort out a current squabble over who controls economic development in the community. He was quoted as saying public disagreements between business and political leaders sends a “negative” message to prospective industries.

But one man’s “negative message” is another man’s accountability. Just about every major economic development project today involves the use of public money for roads, water, and sometimes tax abatements or other taxpayer provided incentives.

Someone should be accountable for those tax dollars. Secret wheeling-and-dealing is never a good idea in economic development. The only people who benefit from that are the real estate titans and public officials.

In any event, secrecy isn’t the solution to attracting private sector investment to Athens-Clarke or in Barrow County.

Both Athens and Barrow have some much larger issues to worry about when it comes to economic development.

There are at least five broad areas of problems that are holding Athens back in its bid to lure private sector investment and to some extent, most of those problems also exist in Barrow County:

1. Terrible public schools. Standing in the shadow of the state’s flagship university is the dysfunctional Clarke County Public School System. Although the Athens media won’t report it, Clarke County schools spend a lot of local tax money on a per pupil basis and yet it’s among the worst performing school systems in the state. Recently, the state released system CRCT results and Clarke County students were by far the worst in Northeast Georgia. In grades five and eight, Clarke students were below the state average in every area except one. Compared to the area’s other school systems, Athens-Clarke is in the basement in just about every educational measurement available. What business wants to locate in a town with a bad public school system? Barrow County isn’t as bad as Clarke’s school system, but it doesn’t have much to brag about, either. A high quality public education is critical to luring private industry to a community.

2. High salaries. Because Athens is a “government” town with much of its employment working either for the state through UGA or for local governments, local wages and benefits are high. No private industry wants to locate in a town where government largess drives up salaries and hires away skilled labor. The main reason the unemployment rate in Athens is low is that it’s mostly government employees, and government has not made the kinds of cuts in this recession that the private sector has made. Private investment won’t flow uphill. Barrow County doesn’t have this problem.

3. Transportation issues. Athens is located in a nook and is isolated from the state’s main transportation corridors. Hwy. 316 helps, but it essentially makes Athens a cul-de-sac. Barrow shares Hwy. 316, but in the middle, which means it’s neither here nor there. And Barrow has other transportation problems that need to be addressed, too.

4. Unfriendly business environment. Athens is a very liberal town where more government is celebrated. It has a reputation of being unfriendly to business interests due to multiple layers of regulations and government overstepping. And the local political culture of extreme political correctness is a big negative to businesses looking to locate there. What industry wants to locate in a town where every nutty liberal tells it how it should operate? If a business wanted that, they’d locate in California. Barrow doesn’t have an unfriendly business environment, but it also doesn’t have much of a business development game plan, either. The idea of expanding Barrow’s airport a few years ago was a misguided pro-business idea, but Barrow has other issues it needs to fix before worrying about the airport.

5. Crime and poverty. It doesn’t get much play in the Athens media, but crime is a problem in Clarke County not just on campus, but also in the larger community. Barrow also has a major crime problem, one that the community is finally starting to recognize and deal with. But it will take years to fix.

Of course, Athens does have strengths that should make it attractive to development, especially with its UGA resources and its college town charm. And it has developed a strong medical community on which it is trying to build into a larger industry.

But until Athens leaders fix the Clark County School System, and until it changes its pervasive “big government” mentality, the community will never be able to attract strong private sector industrial investment. Those investments will continue to go to other counties like Jackson and Oconee where the school systems are better, wages are more reasonable and government regulation is less onerous.

This is also a cautionary tale for Barrow County. Barrow also has some education problems, not as bad as Clarke’s, but the BCSS still has a way to go in breaking into the top third of state school systems. Barrow also has similar crime and transportation problems as Clarke.

And as with Athens-Clarke, too many Barrow leaders don’t want to have a public debate over these controversial community problems. Doing business in secret seems to be endemic to local leaders’ economic development efforts.

For both Barrow and Athens-Clarke, there is this thought: Public debate has far more power to solve problems than whispering behind closed doors.

Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Mainstreet Newspapers, Inc. He can be reached at mike@mainsteetnews.com.