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MDL reports (online! Thanks for posting the lead story, Jon!) that the Madison City Commission decided not to let furniture and cabinet maker Rosebud Manufacturing expand its manufacturing, assembly, and sales operations to the Happy Hour building on Egan Avenue, Madison's Main Street.
Did I read that right? Rosebud wants to expand its business. Rosebud says in its business expansion plan (see page 48 of the June 18 commission meeting agenda packet) that the expansion will add eight jobs to the $2.2 million dollar payroll Rosebud already pumps into the community each year. Rosebud president Don Grayson was able to round up 70 supporters to sit in on last week's planning commission meeting and 50 for last night's city commission meeting to make clear to the commissioners that there are a lot of working people who support the expansion. Grayson says this expansion has to happen now, since Rosebud apparently has orders on the books waiting to be filled. Grayson even went so far as to suggest that if the city didn't approve his request, he could expand his business in Salem instead.
The city in essence looked at immediate increased economic activity and said, "No thanks." What gives?
The Madville Times offers the bold speculation that the city commission (by a 3-1 vote: Mayor Hexom and Commissioners Bohl and Jerry Johnson voted to deny the request; Commission Karen Lembcke voted in favor; Commissioner Mechelle Nordberg was absent) occasionally recognizes some deeper community values than mere revenue-generation. In this case, the commission appears to be acting to protect the overall aesthetics of Madison's Main Street.
Consider an analogy to your house: you don't set up a wood shop in your living room or a toilet in your kitchen. Such combinations might save a little time and maybe even help you be more productive, but they wouldn't feel right. They'd make your house a lot less comfortable and less inviting to guests.
Just as everything has its proper place in a house, everything has its proper place in a town. While there's room for mixed-use areas -- a combination of housing and small shops can make for a lively and comfortable neighborhood -- we should still seek to create an appealing overall town aesthetic, a good vibe that residents and visitors alike will appreciate. Perhaps the city commission feels that manufacturing on main street would detract from that aesthetic. The LAIC appears to hold the same opinion: it submitted the only reported, written opposition to the Rosebud expansion prior to the city commission's vote in a letter to city engineer Chad Comes. That letter (see page 51 of the commission agenda packet) states that the LAIC board of directors voted at its May meeting to "oppose further expansion of any industrial nature on Egan Avenue." The LAIC supports "the continued growth and expansion of Rosebud Manufacturing," but wants to "direct industrial businesses to a proper location, rather than continuing to expand within the downtown core of Madison."
Surprisingly, neither the commission, the LAIC, or MDL elucidate exactly what is meant by a "proper location" for industrial businesses. Fortunately, Prairie Roots offers an excellent discussion of main street aesthetics and our dreams for Madison's downtown. [Reminder/full disclosure: The Madville Times and Prairie Roots sleep together every night!] Along with her usual bewitchingly intelligent prose, Prairie Roots also includes several instructive quotes from the Main Street Program, a nationwide organization that helps towns preserve and rejuvenate their downtowns.
In a nutshell, Main Street should serve as the community's living room, a place where business, government, and recreation all take place in a balanced and inviting atmosphere. On that one vital, symbolic street, major manufacturing operations may not comfortably fit. Through its Monday vote, Madison's city commission may be recognizing the importance of that principle to healthy community development. Let's hope the commission is ready to take more action toward that noble goal of main street preservation.
Drinking Liberally Update (11/15/2024)
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In Politics: Nationally: The Election is over and the wrong side won. I
have nothing to contribute to the barrels of ink being used by Pundits to
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3 days ago
Isn't the Happy Hour bar building on the south end of main street on bar corner? There's nothing appealing about the bar atmosphere there anyway, from one who doesn't frequent such smoke-filled establishments. And aren't there businesses located another block or so south already? Why not let Rosebud have the building rather than it sit empty and fall apart, and have them put the entrance at the southwest corner of said building well away from main street. That way the windows facing main street could showcase Rosebud's product, it would look like another store on main street, and no one driving down main street would ever know it was a manufacturing plant.
ReplyDeleteMy better half just arose and said that the paper stated it was to be a retail establishment anyway in the front and some manufacturing in back, which would go along with my argument.
Given Madison's "thriving" (sarcasm) downtown economy, I would think the city powers that be would welcome this. And it wouldn't destroy Madison's downtown image at all if done as above.
The city of Madison should have put John Green's studio in Mason's on main street and really promoted it. They should really promote Prairie Village which has tremendous untapped potential for Madison. They should be building on the technology aspect of DSU in recruiting business. None of this is being done. Why?
I agree, Nonnie, that, at first glance, leaving the Happy Hour it empty doesn't seem preferable to letting a successful business expand into it. The city and LAIC don't seem to have made their rationale perfectly clear (or maybe the press just didn't make it clear).
ReplyDeletePrairie Roots and I have offered our reasons. We can see that economic growth in and of itself is not necessarily a good thing. We could increase out economic output by bulldozing all of Main Street (and half the town) and letting Hyperion build its refinery here instead of in Elk Point. But such increased economic output would eradicate the community as we know it.
The press also leaves the actual Rosebud plan a little unclear as well. As you noted, Grayson seemed to say Rosebud could use the Egan Avenue side of the building for retail, which could fit with the Main Street concept Prairie Roots and I discuss. But we don't know enough about Rosebud's actual plans or about what exactly our commissioners envision for downtown to sayfor sue.
Now we could speculate about a whole raft of other reasons for the commission's decisions. Maybe someone else with big money has some secret plan for the old Happy Hour. Maybe Grayson got on someone's bad side. Who knows? (That's not a rhetorical question -- that's a real request for you, loyal readers, to find the answers and post them here!)
Close your Eyes and Imagine . . .
ReplyDeleteJust imagine you live across the border from San Diego, Ca. in Tijuana, Mx or across the border from El Paso, TX in Ciudad 'Juarez, Mexico. You know you struggle for your children, wife, or your spouse, week after week, to provide for them, but you really don't know any differant.
Imagine your weekly income for a family of two is only $56.03 weekly, for your mandatory living expenses such as rent, electricity, water, transportation, food, etc As well, you have only $2.03 for your weekly entertainment or almost 4% of your weekly wages. In summation, your weekly wages spent are divided in the following manner:
A. 48% Rent, Electricity, Transporation, Water
B. 48% Food for Family of (2) Two
C. 4% Left over for Entertainment, TV, Movies, Video Rentals, Etc.
So we now have spent the $56.03 of $59.00 weekly wage working in a Tijuana, Mx. maquiladora, (Mexico term for small company, plant). Does this seem sad to you, how two people (husband and wife, or mother and child) live throughout each year with no help from their community. It is sad isn't that anybody should be caught up in this situation. However; the up side of this situation is that this is the "norm", this is expected, and this is what most everybody in this small town endures . . .
Now open your eyes, you are really "NOT" living in Tijuana, Mexico. Neither are you living anywhere in a Mexican border town working to make ends meet for Mexican Maquiladoras. You actually, really you are not in Mexico, at all. You actually are living in the United States, you live in Madison, South Dakota. Surprised?
Read further from the Argus Leader re-print of 150 available jobs in the Madison area to compensate for Arctic Cat's move of their Madison operations to Minnesota. Well, actually, just two hours ago for curiosity sake, here is what is available for jobs today in Lake, Miner, and Moody counties to compensate for loss of the Arctic Cat plant.
The following numbers are from www.sdjobs.org or SD Madison job service, as this is what the community offers as as a source for employment for all displaced workers.
The workers will be offered help finding jobs in the area and were invited to apply at the Minnesota plant. Flynn said he's been swamped with employees interested in transferring. Chapel doubts many will move. "I would anticipate that no more than half a dozen would go, and that would probably be upper management," he said. "That's a difficult transition."
Those who stay should find jobs, if not at the same pay. Chapel said the LAIC has identified 125 to 150 job openings within 20 miles of Madison. Arctic Cat chairman and chief executive officer Christopher Twomey said in a news release that the company is keeping its employees in mind during the consolidation. "By providing this long notice, we expect that most of these employees will be able to find other employment" either with the same company or in the same area, Twomey said.
The above is how Arctic Cat, Inc. of Madison, SD and Thief River Falls, Mn portrayed the shut down and affect to the Arctic Cat employees on Sept. 28th, 2007 as printed in the Sioux Falls Daily Leader.
First, I did a job search by county for Lake County, which I took the liberty to download to my computer for documentation, in case somebody would suggest I'm exaggerating Madison's plight. There are 83 available jobs in Lake County / Madison, as of today. Of these 83 open available jobs for Arctic Cat's displace workers I found some interesting data statistics. Of these job openings 13 of 84 of these jobs advertised as "no", ( 0 ) weekly hours. So with this in mind, I continued to compute. These 13 advertised positions with no hours amounted to 15.5% of Madison's available dis-located worker's future total income available for the unemployeed of Lake County.
Next, if you would take the liberty to view this web site www.sdjobs.org to do your job search, you would find that of these 83 records, 45 of these jobs advertised are displayed with $0.00 weekly dollars per hour. In total this amounts to 54% of all jobs displayed offer $0.00 per hour, for an hourly wage average. In essence for all 83 jobs the hours per week offered for employment the average is 28 hours per week for employment. To compute this data further, the total weekly hourly wages per hour for all these jobs is $2,336.00 or an average of $3.10 per hour on average. The Federal minimum wage standard is $5.85 per hour.
In Miner County there are 8 open jobs with 240 hrs per week advertised for these jobs or 30 hours per week offered in Miner County. The total wages offered at the Miner County web site is $45.00 per week offered divided by 8 or $5.62 per hour, still below minimum hourly wage.
In Moody County there is 15 open jobs with an average of $4.60 per hour and 26.5 Hours average per week.
This amounts to an hourly average wage of $4.60 per hour.
Let's add this data. Instead of 150 available jobs for Madison's dislocated workers, of whom 66 are gone out of 89, are dis-located, as of Dec. 15, 2007 per Madison Daily Leader and Arctic Cat, Inc. Gary Flynn, Interim plant manager from Thief River for the Madison Plant, only 23 jobs are left.
Here is what Arctic Cat, Inc. and the Madison LAIC didn't expect you to know. For all 3 counties there are currently 106 jobs available. These 106 open positions offer an average of 22 Hours weekly for income with and average hourly wage of $5.07 per hour, or $.78 per hour "below" the Federal Minimum Wage. So, $5.07 hourly with an average of 22 hours per week amounts to an average expected income of $111.54 per week.
Would Gary Flynn, Chris Twomey, or Dwaine Chapel work for this wage, I wonder? What I'm getting at is not to keep bashing Arctic Cat, or Chris Twomey, CEO of Arctic Cat, Inc. or Dwaine Chapel for his lapse in judgement in my opinion, what really gets to me is that "our city fathers" let the Job Service Center of South Dakota keep displaying job ads for $0.00 Hourly or 0 Hours Per Week. How is Job Service getting away with this type of Job Dis-Service just before the Christmas Holidays and right after Madison had "KATRINA" hit this town? Bottom line, you either advertise the correct number of hours for your business/company you have available, "and" your minimum wage or YOU DO NOT GET YOUR NEEDS ATTENDED TO through job service of South Dakota.
What is your opinion?
Anonymous for the Last Time . . .