Special to The Enterprise

At its most recent meeting, the city of Davis Business and Economic Development Commission took an important step forward in meeting its responsibilities to the City Council and the Davis community. The commission unanimously recommended that the City Council adopt the commissionÕs recently completed Davis Economic Health and Prosperity Report. The report will be considered for adoption by the City Council at its meeting Sept. 21.

On Aug. 2, the City Council unanimously adopted six major priority areas to guide the development of a new two-year strategic plan. Three of these priorities are addressed in the new Davis Economic Health and Prosperity Report: fiscal stability, economic development and maintaining the vitality of downtown. The commission report provides baseline data that will assist the council and the community in the development of more specific goals for each of these priorities.

The report represents the culmination of a multi-year commission effort to examine and measure some of the key factors defining economic development and community well-being, and to help policymakers and the community assess Òhow is Davis doing?Ó and Òhow do we know?Ó

The factors chosen to measure progress are important to the community. The report is structured around five overarching indictors: business health, business climate, city revenue, quality of life and people. City performance on each indicator is compared to other jurisdictions (both regional and other college communities) as well as against DavisÕ own past performance.

In selecting data to represent each indicator, consideration was given to cost, reliability and practicability for future updates to monitor change. To finalize the variable selection, the commission sought input from a steering committee reflecting a broad spectrum of expertise. The report has been written in a straightforward manner to ensure maximum community accessibility to the important data and results.

With equal weights assigned to the five indicators, Davis places third out of the nine jurisdictions analyzed. The commission subcommittee that compiled the report struggled with the idea of differential weights for the indicators and finally concluded that it did not have the sufficient evidence to use different weights. This is one of several policy issues where council guidance would be helpful going forward. If the measurement of performance is limited to the three economic indicators Ñ business health, business climate and city revenue Ñ DavisÕ rank drops to sixth among the nine jurisdictions.

The Davis Economic Health and Prosperity Report is an important new tool for evaluating city economic health and developing new economic strategies for the future. Ideally, the dialogue around this first edition of the report will lead to changes in the next edition two years that will make it even more helpful. Over time, this report will evolve to meet new city interests and needs. This report is a good place to start a discussion of how we want to approach this critical task in the future.

This report is a bargain. The total cost, aside from commission and staff time, was $6,500 ($1,500 in city funds for data acquisition and $5,000 from a generous private donor that was used for student stipends). Needless to say, the report has a pretty good cost/benefit ratio no matter how you measure it.

The report, along with an executive summary and a full data appendix, can be found online at http://www.cityofdavis.org under the ÒWhatÕs NewÓ link. All members of the community are encouraged to review this report and reflect on the important issues and questions it raises.

Ñ Bob Agee is chairman of the Business and Economic Development Commission and Michael Faust is vice chairman. Don Saylor is mayor of Davis.

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