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> Michigan City Unemployed
kharris
post Jul 16 2011, 05:33 PM
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Jobs are the central issue of the 2011 Mayoral election. It is an issue that transcends party and candidate. Over the past two generations jobs have disappeared at an alarming rate from Michigan City. Today the conditions exist that should be turning the tide in the pursuit of bringing jobs to our City. Recently the state of Indiana dropped their corporate income tax rates, while nearly simultaneously the state of Illinois raised theirs. Indiana was even ranked 6th in a recent survey which ranked the best states for business, while Illinois ranked 46th.

Some of the biggest named companies in Illinois have made very loud noises about leaving. Companies like Caterpillar, Sears, and even the Chicago Mercantile Exchange have begun to entertain offers from other states. This should be the opportunity of a lifetime for a community like Michigan City.

Instead we have one of our most famous employers moving jobs from Michigan City to Chicago. What is wrong with this picture? Michigan City has incredible advantages to offer. We have interstates, railroads, and ports. We have a ready workforce, plenty of facilities for companies to occupy, a low cost of living, and yet we are losing jobs to Chicago? That is unacceptable to me.

When some of the largest companies in the world are publicly shopping themselves worldwide, it can only mean that many small to medium firms are thinking the exact same thing in private right now. We as a community should be out finding and aggressively recruiting these companies. We should be selling ourselves, just like a person out of work would be shopping themselves while looking for a job.

Right now Michigan City is much like that out of work person. We as a community have seen our jobs disappear. We have the opportunity to restore these jobs again, but we can’t wait and hope that someone comes to us. This hasn’t worked for the last 40 years, and it isn’t going to work now. My administration will recognize the changes of the economic situation and will do everything to bring jobs back to Michigan City and restore our rightful place as one of the best places to live, not only in the Midwest, but in the entire country as well.
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Dave
post Jul 18 2011, 12:41 PM
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QUOTE(kharris @ Jul 16 2011, 06:33 PM) *

My administration will recognize the changes of the economic situation and will do everything to bring jobs back to Michigan City and restore our rightful place as one of the best places to live, not only in the Midwest, but in the entire country as well.


What specific policies will you implement to accomplish this?

This post has been edited by Dave: Jul 18 2011, 12:42 PM
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kharris
post Jul 19 2011, 12:47 PM
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QUOTE(Dave @ Jul 18 2011, 01:41 PM) *

What specific policies will you implement to accomplish this?

Attracting jobs to Michigan City of course will not be an easy task, but I do believe there are positive steps that we can take in our attempts to make this happen.

One of the initial steps I will take as Mayor will be to put together a kind of “think tank” that will be comprised of someone from city administration, our local school system, EDC and Chamber officials, participants from PNC and Ivy Tech, and local business leaders. The purpose of this think tank will be two fold. First task will be to identify why our community might be overlooked by relocating businesses, and secondly after evaluating those reasons, develop both short and long term plans to address those problems in an effort to make our community more appealing.

Of course we will continue to utilize the tried and true methods of TIF districts and tax abatements, but beyond that we need to become innovative in our approach to bring jobs to Michigan City. Other communities have been experiencing success by making improvements to the non-work activates for employees relocating with the business. Portage just recently had success in securing a new location for a Michigan employer through use of their Ameriplex, or build it and they shall come concept.

Bottom line is this … there is no one single avenue to take in this endeavor. We need to be creative, innovative and aggressive in restoring jobs to Michigan City. We need to involve the right people, we need to create a plan and we need to work that plan, and in doing so I believe we can be successful.
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