Title
Economic Development Peer City: Part IV - Conclusions and Recommendations (B)
Explanation
On August 23, 2004, the City Commission adopted a Strategic Action Plan for Economic Development. The Plan is an attempt to chart a future course for the City regarding Economic Development efforts and evolves out of the following events: 1) the convening of the Mayor's Transition teams, principally the Business Friendliness/Economic Development team; 2) the request from Commissioner Braddy for staff to develop a Peer City and Benchmarking system tied to performance in Economic Development; 3) information complied and reported to elected officials from various citizen led teams associated with the Inter-City trip to Norfolk/New Haven; 4) the 2004 Economic Development Summit sponsored by the City of Gainesville and Gainesville Council for Economic Outreach; and 5) goals and budget priorities established by the City Commission in the context of the FY 2005-2006 budget review.
The Plan defines five key Economic Development attributes deemed as being important to the concerns of business entities and thus, the economic health of the City (including Infrastructure, Business Environment, Workforce, Diversified Economy and Quality of Life). Various indices have been developed to measure each of these five attributes. In addition, a list of sixteen peer cities has been identified to serve as peers to Gainesville for comparison purposes. The list of cities was developed based upon a variety of factors, most important of which is the presence of a major public university, deemed comparable to the City of Gainesville.
This final component of the Peer City Report series presents several conclusions gleaned from an analysis of peer cities and makes several recommendations that are in keeping with current efforts being pursued by the Economic Development Department.
Fiscal Note
No fiscal impact.
Recommendation
The City Commission hear a presentation on c...
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