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Editorial - TAKE THE PLEDGE TO GROW MOWER

If we could tell you we had the opportunity to bring a new industry to town that would have an annual payroll of $20 million, would you be interested? What if we told you this same industry had the potential to increase their payroll ten times over? And all the employees of this new industry would live in our community, and spend their paychecks in our community, each and every day?

This new industry would not ask for any special deals. No subsidies. No tax breaks. But rather it would pay taxes, lots of taxes, helping to expand our property tax base while lowering the burden on others.

This would be a generous industry with a long history of charitable giving. Each year, it would provide broad financial support for community projects, helping to enhance our quality of life. Its employees would join our organizations, our churches. Their children would populate our schools and parks.

What if this industry was here today, and we turned it away. Sent it to another community. Would you be disappointed? Angry?

We do have such an industry in town, today. It’s not a single business, but many. Collectively, they are our retail base, and collectively they are losing nearly $140 million in sales annually to competitors in other communities. This loss of revenue hurts more than the businesses affected, it hurts our entire community. Dollars that could have been spent here, leave here to help other communities grow. Dollars that could have provided jobs here, leave here to provide jobs elsewhere. They support community projects, enhance quality of life, expand the tax base, not here . . . but elsewhere.

We talk a lot about economic development, most often in terms of industry and adding jobs through new industry. That’s important, no argument here. But what is the value of those jobs if over 40 percent of those payroll checks leave our town as soon as they are written?

That’s what has been happening in Austin and Mower County. Dollars that could be spent here are being spent elsewhere. A 2006 University of Minnesota Retail Analysis estimates that Mower County has a retail sales “leakage” of 43.9 percent. The economic impact to our trade area, the study shows, is comparable to a population loss of more than 16,000 residents! That’s mind-boggling!

We need to reverse that trend. In an effort to do just that, the Chamber is planning a major marketing campaign that is designed to increase public awareness of the problem, and how residents and businesses alike can be part of the solution.

BUY MOWER, GROW MOWER will promote the benefits of shopping locally. Benefits that extend far beyond the retailer to all aspects of our community. It will show how dollars spent here, stay here to create jobs, expand our tax base and enhance our quality of life through charitable giving.

The campaign starts today. For it to be successful, the community must “buy-in” to the idea that residents benefit when they support their local businesses. And we will need you, our business members, to buy into that message first by pledging your own support, and then by promoting the theme in your stores and asking your employees to pledge their support, as well.

We’re not going to ask everyone to spend all their dollars in town. As a matter of fact, we’re only going to ask for a small fraction – just a 10 percent shift back to local businesses. Of course, we hope that percentage will grow. But even if we shift just 10 percent of the dollars spent out-of-town, back to Austin and Mower County . . .those dollars will multiply as they continue to flow through our communities. And we will have made a $20 million impact on our economy.

To make this happen, all we have to do is commit to the ideal, pledge to embrace and support the businesses we already have, here, and then watch our communities grow. It all starts with a simple pledge to BUY MOWER, GROW MOWER. The end result will benefit us all.

Take the pledge today.