MILLINOCKET, Maine — A Virginia-based economic development firm that offered to work for free to help the town recover from its loss of industry has already started compiling statistics for town leaders, its president said Friday.
At the request of Town Manager Peggy Daigle, CZB Associates of Alexandria will shortly begin examining and eventually provide her with Millinocket’s rates of homeowner tenure, property foreclosure, commercial and housing availability, mortgage performance, income levels, job availability and household composition, CZB President Charles Buki said.
These will help town leaders get a good grip on the Millinocket’s economic performance and assets, Buki said.
“I think the operating hunch for us is that the economy that built the town isn’t going to carry the town in the near or long-term future. Until we learn otherwise, that is our assumption. If the numbers really suggest that, then we really have to think about what the town’s options are,” Buki said Friday during a telephone interview.
“The numbers might tell us actually that there are good options. You would want to bring the community together to talk about that. They could also tell you they have don’t have many good options and there might not be much that can be done in the short-term to improve the situation,” he added.
Daigle told the Town Council during a meeting Thursday that Buki’s firm had contacted her with a pro bono offer to help Millinocket reassemble itself to face its declining and aging population and the loss of its primary economic driver — papermaking. Councilors were wary but not opposed. Daigle said she encouraged CZB officials to provide whatever help they thought they could. She said she also has begun checking the company’s references.
This marks the first time the 13-year-old urban planning and neighborhood development consulting firm has ever worked for free, said Buki, who made the offer after seeing a story on the town in the New York Times published Aug. 2.
“It just struck me as a place that would be confronting a pretty severe set of challenges, and we work with a lot of communities that are similarly situated. I have some affection for that situation and the state,” Buki said.
CZB can help communities fashion new identities and overcome roadblocks to growth and economic development they might have with other municipalities, said Lori Tretter, assistant municipal administrator for Bowling Green, Ohio. That’s a city near Toledo with a population of 30,028 that once had a thriving manufacturing base.
Bowling Green’s City Council will begin studying on Monday a long-term development plan for the Interstate 75 corridor that CZB helped fashion between the city and Bowling Green State University, a member of the community with which the city has had a contentious relationship, Tretter said.
CZB held many community development meetings to try to get both to work together better, Tretter said. Her description of the relationship between the university and city mirrors that which exists with Millinocket and the other Katahdin region towns of East Millinocket and Medway, where longstanding animosities have blocked many joint development proposals.
“Before, the city would have said, ‘This is our road,’ and BSU would have said, ‘This is our land.’ Now, and for the first time ever, we are looking at our plans jointly and working together to improve the area,” Tretter said Friday.
“CZB is not afraid to ask hard questions. The folks we have worked with would challenge people to think and defend and justify positions,” Tretter added. “Their motivation is to think critically about why you have a belief or something is a certain way. They would say, tell me why, go deeper.”
The firm began work for Bowling Green last November. Chosen from a field of three finalists, it will earn $89,921 for its work, which is expected to conclude in late fall, Tretter said.
CZB’s website lists 57 municipalities or organizations from across the U.S. to which it provided housing analysis and neighborhood development strategies, comprehensive and general planning aid, statewide housing market analysis and policy evaluation, and policy or program analysis. The municipalities include former coal mining and manufacturing towns coping with aging populations and the loss of those core industries.
Its 12-member team also relies on a six-member advisory group of university professors, real estate consultants, housing architects and statistical evaluators.
If Millinocket leaders agree to allow the firm to help, Buki said the firm would follow their directions, but he imagined that the effort would take two stages.
CZB would first provide a detailed economic development analysis using “real high-fidelity numbers that are hard to come by.” Then, its principals might come to Millinocket for visioning sessions where community leaders and residents would discuss what they see as Millinocket’s future.
CZB doesn’t promise miracles but rather a hard road ahead, Buki said.
“Whether you are moving from manufacturing to other forms of industry, to a knowledge-based economy or tourism, banking, or to a service center, all of those transitions are difficult to make,” Buki said, “and they don’t happen overnight.”