From the Roundtable: How Columbia should feel about year-end economic condition

Why did the local economy get a bit of a breather this year compared with much of the rest of the USA?
Perhaps it’s because Columbia is the University of Missouri’s “factory town” and harbors major medical and insurance complexes while toting other economic perks too numerous to enumerate.
Although a modest recovery has been underway for months, let’s not get too arrogant about our relatively safe harbor because it appears that next year, and maybe a few years out, will be mined with state budget shortfalls.
Gone are the conditions of the 1990s when the Columbia-Boone County rate of unemployment cruised below 2 percent. But thank you very much for the recent dip to 6 percent.
Through careful budgeting and an unexpected increase in sales tax revenue as the year wound down, Columbia as a municipal enterprise dodged the deficit bullet. Our scrupulously cautionary officials note, however, that the city had better mind its financial knitting as it encounters such big ticket items such as pension funding and the imbroglio over the Hinkson Creek.
Things we should feel good about include steady growth at MU, Columbia College and Stephens College. Despite reduced state support, MU’s building program continues with particular emphasis on expanding University Hospital to the tune of more than $200 million. This is coupled with the latest expansion nearing completion at Boone Hospital Center, an addition at the Truman VA Hospital and the construction of an orthopedic center. Columbia also continues to move forward as a major retail center and with reliable jet air service to a major hub. These conditions in the 2010s maintain Columbia as a target for continued economic development.
We scored a big one last May when IBM chose Columbia as the site for a new service center that aims to employ 800 people. Regional Economic Development Inc. has been reinvigorated and is adopting the techniques of economic development long practiced elsewhere. City leaders hinted at year’s end that Columbia was among the few competitors left in the final running for a couple of other major projects, including a huge data center.
More dismaying were the announced departures of several key figures in City Hall, including Finance Director Lori Fleming and City Manager Bill Watkins. The business community has found Watkins, who plans to leave in March, to be a true friend, with an ability to exercise just the right balance of tact and understanding as he sought to wrestle with the community’s cornucopia of special interests.
Earlier this year, voters decided to realign the balance of power on the City Council by moving two conservative businessmen into seats that in recent years were filled by academics who were more liberal. Just as startling was Dr. Bob McDavid’s strong victory over challenger Jerry Wade. Voters decided to favor a dynamic take-charge guy over the somewhat laid-back former councilman from the 4th Ward.
Columbia has long had many great things going for it, but the community is encased in a state that seems to have lost its way. Wake up, Missouri, because the Show-Me State really has so many great things going for it as well. Based on its strategic location alone and relatively low cost of living, businesses should be migrating here from high-tax states in droves. Yet, we continue to be bypassed.
Columbia has to be careful about husbanding its good fortune, but we just might have what it takes to get the rest of the state moving again. Could Columbia become the center of a diamond-shaped region of economic development, encompassing the two biggest metropolitan areas to the east and west and Kirksville and Rolla north and south?
Hopefully we already appreciate examples of regional resurgence, the biggest being the new manufacturing employment in Moberly. The next step is to make this a statewide effort because now that Greater Columbia has changed its development ways, our great state should do as well.