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What does Spencer need right now?Posted Tuesday, July 13, 2010, at 11:02 AM
Jobs
Yes, I agree. One commenter on a recent article said it is very hard to live here when a decent house costs around $100,000 and the average wage is $12/hr. What else needs to happen in Spencer? Do you think we're meeting our goal of becoming an arts and culture center in Iowa? Is there enough to do here? Do we have enough diversity? Are there opportunities for people with disabilities to meet their potential? Are there opportunities for entrepreneurs? Is it affordable to live here? Any and all of these questions and more are on my mind when I think about Spencer. What do you think? Comments Showing comments in chronological order [Show most recent comments first] |
Amy Hillgren Peterson has been married to Ed since 1992 and is the mother of three children: one at Spencer High School, one at Spencer Middle School, and one at Lincoln Elementary School. Her articles and essays have won several awards and have appeared in local and national publications. She is the author of a memoir and a novel, and is currently at work on a trilogy of stage plays. She blogs about faith, relationships, simple, sustainable living, mental health and creative writing.
Hot topics Five Houses for Every 1(16 ~ 2:24 PM, Sep 5)
Because King would NEVER resort to a political stunt...
What does Spencer need right now?
A Passion for Fashion
Original Theater Right Here!
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Wow Amy...talk about opening a can of worms! My mind is reeling! Being born and raised in Spencer, I am frustrated at seeing the town wither. Do I have all the answers? No. My observations:
We are doing fair in the arts and culture-we have Arts on Grand (classes, showings), SCT (productions 2-4 times a year) and Events Center (about a dozen events a year);
Affordable to live here? No. I'm told a decent rental is $500/mo and my utilities are $50 more per month from 4 years ago (using less KWH) and now a recent 8% increase in solid waste. Ordinances to trim my trees ($75-$100), paint my house ($$$), and in the future add sidewalks ($$$);
Enough to do here? No. We can't even stop downtown at one of the coffee shops and grab a coffee and go sit out on the sidewalk and enjoy the day (I think there is an ordinance against tables/chairs on city sidewalks).
Again, I don't have all the answers. I don't think it is all just Spencer. Much has to do with the state of the economy. I also believe we, as a society, are no longer "community-invested". We are much more transient, whether it be by choice or by necessity.
Thanks for letting me put in my 2 cents!
Opportunities are slim. Our number one and sole focus right now should be bringing in business, and creating an environment to keep business. That will drive everything else. Diversity? Why are you concerned about that? There is this notion that art, culture, and diversity make a town great. Well we have more of the above than we did 20 years ago, and the town I grew up in and have spent most my life in is dying on the vine. I am not saying it is not important, I am saying it should not be the focus of tax payer money and elected officials. Let those who want Art bring it to the community with their pocketbooks. There is plenty to do in Spencer, we have our 3000 parks, hunting, fishing, golf, and numerous other things. If our children are bored, either their parents let them play to many video games, or they aren't allowed to do all the activities we did growing up. Our bike helmet, safety first, second, and third mentality has destroy so many childhoods. Bringing in business is the only way to turn the tide. We need to listen to the young business people. They have motivation to grow our community. To many people of influence are government employees and have never done it on their own.
Spencer needs new leadership!!! Its a damn shame when Spencer is full of hardworkers who can't find jobs that pay more then $12 an hour. I keep reading all these stories about art, and downtown, and these stupid lights that all the money is being spent on (that are ugly as hell IMO ).... Spencer could be one of the best places in america to live if they would spend more time on bringing in more business. A huge opportunity would be to get involved with the wind farm/energy programs. That alone could put back to work all the people who got laid off at RR Donelly, and its an industry with a huge future.
We need to recruit good small retail shops for both the mall and downtown.
Guitarman, you gotta think bigger then that. Spencer needs a business to come in that can really generate some jobs, and good paying jobs at that. Then you can have your shops...otherwise your sales are gonna be affected by lack of people having the money to go shop.
I am just amazed that nobody has a comment on the progress of the Grand Avenue project. I am also wondering on who and how the lights on Grand were approved and voted because I have a feeling that a lot of people would have not been in favor of the size and the quality of light they produce. I am wondering if anybody checked this style out in another community. I agree with Bansky Spencer needs a lot more effort on good jobs and less on so called beutification. With decades of flooding on the river at the bridge I don't think we need to be spending the money on development on the river. Thanks for listening.
I don't know about the posters so far, but try getting involved on boards, committees, or finding out when public comment is being asked for at meetings by various boards. So often I hear complaints about the decisions being made, and many times very few public showed up to offer comments. Go to a city council meeting once and watch the procedures. Hardly ever do anyone voice there opinions. If you care about development call the corridor or the chamber or your councilman/mayor. Don't assume Spencer is sitting on its hands. Many opportunities are always in the works. They don't always materialize though.
Spencer needs a Target! Not only because Target is much better than Wal-Mart, but because it gives the customers VARIETY!! I hate going shopping for a kid's birthday and HAVING to go to Wal Mart because we simply don't have anything else. Having a Target store would also create jobs! And I know for a fact that it would bring people from other towns to Spencer. No, they may not move here because of a Target store, but they certainly would their money here.
formerRaider, Target is one of the few things I miss about living in Sioux City. :-P I told my daughter if we had the money, we'd go shop somewhere else, just to get out of town and have more selection. Mankato is not too far and they have -- Target!
Molly Beth, the point was brought up recently that the Grand Avenue project does create jobs! Whom do you see working on the project. Not robots or droids -- people! People with jobs! Would those jobs be available if not for this project?
Sorry, but my comment had to do with why isn't the project being completed in a timely fashion? Right now you seldom see anybody doing anything. Maybe Midstates should be hired to finish it since they seem to know how to get something done. My comment was referring to the middle of Grand where the landscaping is supposed to be done.
I guess the delay on Grand has to do with the contractor hired for the sprinklers, at least that is what I have been told. Hopefully the city is applying some pressure on them to get it done so the project can be finished. It will look great when it's done I think, however it seems to be taking a while to get to that point.
I wonde if the problem with finishing the median may be because of the sidewalk construction. The scheduling of which contractor would be shutting down which lanes at any given day could be very time consuming. Also if the only thing left to do on the median is plant grass they may be waiting to do that all at once. That is just a scenario I thought of the other day while I was contemplating the slow progress.
http://spencerniche.wordpress.com/
Obviously this is what I think Spencer could use. It offers a range of things not already available, and if it would keep people around, be an incentive for other businesses to move in. There will be more on this whole thing in the near future. Just know that it is feasible, we are just looking for community input before making a move. So please read, vote, and comment! Feel free to share any other ideas.
perhaps spencer is fine the way it is. towns like spencer will fluctuate. small town economies are typically dependent on the local good (agriculture for us). i think everyone is expecting great changes , not just in spencer but in the whole nation, and maybe its just that the changes are going to slow down. its good to find ways to make things better, but dont be let down by the limits the town can provide to.
I find Spencer very affordable, only because I had to move due to lack of skilled labor jobs, and I make right at twice as much money now, and keep more of it (but would rather be in Northwest Iowa - where the "mostly" sane people are - and you can leave your doors unlocked without a great deal of concern).
A very small percentage of the population cares about Arts and Culture. Do a house to house poll sometime, it will be very clear I'm sure.
Retail is not "jobs". A few good jobs and a bunch of mediocre ones creating money for stockholders in far-away places. Retail is not, and will never be the answer.
Diversity? Move to Storm Lake.
Diversity as a Liberal sees it, is very much different than Diversity from a realistic standpoint. If you want more crime, more public assistance, more citizens who can't communicate with each other, more lawsuits from those who feel "wronged", more rundown properties, more people who have absolutely nothing in common with their neighbors, more translators in every form of public service, then yeah, Diversity is your answer.
You have one of the best YMCA's in the entire country. You have two nice golf courses, a fabulous baseball/softball complex, 12 miles of 4 lane traffic from Lake Okoboji, a river to canoe on or fish in. You have the Clay County Fair and an Events Center.
Get the kids out of their "bubble wrap" and let them be kids. Throw away the darn video games, there is plenty to do.
Spencer needs better jobs to keep people there, growth is overrated and usually brings more trouble than what it's worth. The issue is to keep what you have, and have as many people as possible having a "nice" standard of living.
Okay, if only a very few people here care about the arts, why is it that Spencer was chosen as an Arts and Cultural destination in the state? Why are there such large turnouts at the community theatre's plays, the orchestra and band concerts, the high school plays, etc.?
If what people want is a lot of smelly factories and zero aesthetics, why did we not become a manufacturing destination instead.
Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. We need to figure out something else.
I agree retail is not the answer -- especially chain retail where most of the money goes somewhere else. Developing specialized, local retail may not create hundreds of jobs, but it will stimulate the tax base so perhaps companies can come in.
You know my view on it -- why pay some out of town company to locate a little outpost here, when our tax dollars could support business innovation from our own citizens. Let's be sustainable and create jobs for ourselves and each other.
Also -- "diversity" and "getting more people of a minority race group just for the sake of it" are not the same thing. Diversity means people with all sorts of backgrounds and views -- white Midwestern, middle class is not devalued at all.
What amazes me is to see the people whining about "12 dollars an hour" jobs.
A lot of people would kill for 12 buck jobs. Quit complaining. Not making enough? Then how about cutting back on the newer cars and the expensive cell phones or unnecessary house improvements that can wait for better times. Can't live without the modern excess? Then get a second job then and shut up. Our parents and grandparents dealt with hardships everyday and most managed to put food on the table and shelter over our heads and pay the bills without to much complaining and showing a whole lot of dignity. It's a shame that isn't more common now.
Be happy with what you have. We're in a terrible economy right now! Deal with it, because it could be a Heck of a lot worse.
I come from a small town in MO where we literally don't have anything more than minimum wage jobs because all of the factories did move out, except for one Hell-hole of a small copper plant which will give you about ten bucks an hour starting. Try living on that when the cost of living is amost double that of Spencer.
Spencer is a fine place to live.
Quit your complaining. If you don't like it, leave and see how bad it is in other parts of our great country.
The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence.
Well Amy, Diversity where you live and Diversity where I live, I can assure you are two different things.
Good to see the Arts are well represented in Spencer, I'm sure all the jobs it has created has got the economy humming right along. I guess the good news is the unemployed meandering the streets will have lot's of "pretty" things to look at!
The population keeps decreasing, but by God we'll make a pretty/larger Community Theater!
Your answer for the turnouts....... everyone is related, and it's the same people, over, and over, and over. It's a small percentage of the population.
Dick, I believe Amy is trying to say that bringing in diversity can be as simple as bringing in people from other areas, regardless of race. For Spencer, Iowa, diversity could mean bringing in people from larger cities as well as small towns like Spencer. It could mean people of different religious backgrounds, which often brings alternative business. It could mean people of different races, but not necessarily. Why do you assume that diversity automatically means "let's bring in people of the lowest income bracket"?
I would like to say that the community theatre's renovation was raised through private fund and not taxpayer dollars, so I'm not sure why there are complaints about it. If you did not want to donate, you certainly did not have to. If they did get a grant from the Iowa Arts Council or some such thing, write to your state representative and express your view that the IAC and other such bodies should be abolished.
What are the biggest factory towns in this country: Cleveland? Pittsburgh? Indianapolis? Detroit? Northern New Jersey?
Cleveland has a 31.1% unemployment rate. Pittsburgh has a 35% poverty rate. Indianapolis has much bigger problems than LeBron James' turncoating -- the fourth highest homelessness rate of cities in the U.S. New Jersey -- that's where the manufacturing jobs moved when NYC became too crowded 100-150 years ago. New Jersey has counties on the lists for both the highest and the lowest per-capita income. Hardly anyone there is in a middle-class manufacturing jobs --they're either executives or on welfare or worse.
I just cannot see where bringing in more manufacturing companies from out of town will raise our standard of living here. It hasn't worked in the places that have been the nation's major manufacturing centers for a century and a half.
They need to think of something new, and so do we.
Spencer could use more manufacturing jobs, just like anywhere else in the country could, to be sure, but unemployment is actually not our largest problem; underemployment and inflation are by far bigger concerns. Iowa has always historically had lower unemployment rates than the national average: we peaked at a little over 8% back in the 80s;-our economic makeup is too dissimilar to larger industrial-based city economies to make a valid comparison.
Spencer needs? There are several:
1. Lower housing prices. Inflation of housing prices and their ballooning bubble have failed to devalue themselves to what would be fair market prices for the average income like much of the rest of the small-mid population local economies of the country, made all the worse by rental properties being outrageously over priced for the value or quality one could expect from an average apartment in Spencer.
2. Employers who are large enough to do their own hiring instead of going through temp agencies who bleed from workers' paychecks a significant portion of their earnings. Forget their promises of "work searches for potential workers" when the city is small enough anyone looking for a specific kind of job would be able to look themselves, would it were so they could without that particular employer informing them they have to apply through a temp agency.
3. If there actually is such a "goal," give up the idea of becoming an "arts and culture center." We're a 90% white protestant populated small town in an area of the country lacking much innovation, invention, cultural diversity of any positive significance, or compelling reason for people to travel here during most of the year. Having a couple studios and a place with stained glass windows isn't the start of making a place a cultural center, it's just a typical small town with a studio and glass shop.
4. Big chain restaurants-they're big chains because people actually like eating there. The ones we have now are fine, but what they offer is rather limited and the same as most other places around the area.
That group that shows up to all the plays and Arts on Grand events are the same people. No one cares about the "arts" because here the arts are snobby and rude. It's not even creative, all the art apparently has to mean something, and it looks terrible. That new sculpture on the bridge looks stupid and is just an eyesore. No one cares what it means, I just wish someone would make somethin that looked cool.
I think we need another skateboard contest, those are always fun.
What I would like to know is what is the city thinking? Putting up a brick sign saying "Grand Ave", are we trying to compete with Spirit Lake and their Hill Ave brick signs? With all the budget cuts Culver made (yes I think he is an idiot) that money should have gone to law enforcement or the schools.