Anima
A Map to the Future?
Survey could chart the path for economic
development through 2020.
BY MELISSA BEARNS
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F
or the next few weeks,
Corvallis residents and busi-
ness owners will be spending
a lot of time thinking about
what kind of city they want to
live in, asking hard questions about bal-
ancing economic growth with quality of
life. What makes Corvallis a great place
to live? What kind of business and indus-
try will fit with the values of the commu-
nity? How much do we care about the
health of our rivers and forests, and how
will we encourage sustainable growth in
the city?
The survey comes as Corvallis faces
some of the most extensive layoffs resi-
dents have ever dealt with. “HP is down-
sizing and makes no bones about the fact
that they’re going to continue to downsize
through 2008,” Corwin said. “That’s
going to dramatically affect the economy
of Corvallis. We lack diversity in our pri-
mary wage jobs and that needs to be ad-
dressed.”
But the real question is, what is that
“change” going to look like? Some local
business owners are concerned. “Will it
end up being a meaningful government
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Part of the 2020 Vision project for the city, the survey is
the first step in creating a specific action plan for meeting
the broad economic goals laid out in that document.
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Tuesday, January 10,
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WWW . VIOLINS . ORG
Those are just a few of the questions
the Economic Vitality Partnership (EVP)
hopes to answer in a two-part survey re-
leased this month. Part of the 2020 Vision
project for the city, the survey is the first
step in creating a specific action plan for
meeting the broad economic goals laid
out in that document. “The 2020 plan is a
blueprint,” said EVP Chair Mike Corwin.
“But it’s not specific, it’s a vision piece.
The survey will help us create a business
action plan that will detail how we’ll ac-
complish that vision.”
The EVP will actually be conducting
two surveys: one 20-question survey that
goes out to the community in general, and
a much longer 86-question survey distrib-
uted to local businesses. The strategic
planning committee of the EVP, which in-
cludes representation from 11 of the 14
members, created the questions. Some are
multiple choice, some are short essays.
“Is Corvallis and Benton County govern-
ment friendly to new businesses?” is a
typical yes/no question, while “What is
your personal vision of Corvallis in the
next two decades?” is one of the essay
questions.
The survey will be out for just a few
weeks. Then the real work starts. The city
will hire a consultant to crunch the data,
they’ll hold town hall meetings for the
public to weigh in on the results, and by
June of 2006, the EVP hopes to have an
action plan for increasing economic vital-
ity in Corvallis.
“I don’t necessarily see this as a strat-
egy for growth,” said City Councilman
Rob Gándara who’s also the council’s
liaison working on the survey. “I see it as
a strategy for change. Certain businesses
are leaving the city, jobs are disappearing.
We can choose to do nothing, or we can
choose to manage the change that’s hap-
pening in Corvallis.”
document or will it end up gathering dust
on a shelf?” asks Bob Baird, owner of the
Book Bin and also a member of the EVP’s
strategic planning committee. “Is this
something that could keep us from going
the route that many small cities have, full
of McDonald’s and Home Depots? We
have a lot of small businesses and a thriv-
ing downtown core full of locally owned
businesses. I don’t want to see us becom-
ing a generic place full of those stores that
you can find anywhere. Because then,
why would anyone want to come
here?”
The City Council has allocated
$30,000 for the EVP to do this first phase
of research. And in the 2020 Vision plan’s
section on economic vitality, the first
thing you read is “Corvallis recognizes
that its livability is a primary source of its
economic vitality.” The plan goes on to
list a predominance of small, locally
owned businesses, family wage jobs, a re-
gional transportation system and improv-
ing the quality of water and air as top pri-
orities.
City Manager Jon Nelson said he ex-
pects the project will balance the different
voices in the community in the same way
that the 2020 Vision plan has. “In a com-
munity that loves to debate for the sake of
debate, this [2020 Vision] plan has been
very well accepted. People can see their
piece in it, how they fit in.”
And while the survey and the action
plan that comes out of it may become very
important documents that guide
Corvallis’ economic growth, ultimately,
they’re just a part of the 2020 plan that
also includes strengthening the city’s cen-
ter, culture, recreation, education, human
services, government, civic involvement,
the environment and much more. “This
survey is a sliver of a much bigger pie,”
Nelson said.
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