Aiming to improve public-private partnerships and expand on its recently released economic development plan, more than 150 people gathered Friday for Evanston’s annual Economic Development Summit.
Business owners, community members and city officials attended the event at the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center which involved statements from several officials affiliated with economic development and discussion groups on topics outlined in the development plan.
The plan was released in March and is intended to apply from 2012 to 2014, said Evanston economic development manager Nancy Radzevich. She emphasized the importance of including private citizens in the discussions and implementation of the plan.
“The way we need to achieve (the plan’s goals) is partnerships,” she said. “We need the partnerships with the business community, with the residents, with the nonprofit organizations.”
The plan has two main goals: creating jobs and growing the city’s revenue base. They were derived from the Economic Development Vision Statement, which was adopted by city the council in January 2010.
Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl kicked off Friday’s summit with a brief speech. She called economic development “the number one goal of the City Council,” but agreed with Radzevich that Evanston’s business owners have to help the city government to improve the city’s economic development.
“I always believe that the people in Evanston are the greatest strength in Evanston, and we’re counting on you and your innovative ideas to make this summit a tremendous success,” Tisdahl said. “I know that you will come up with ideas beyond anything I could imagine.”
Tisdahl said the city has gone from one full-time staffer focused on economic development to six over the past three years.
Officials organized two sets of discussion groups, with the first set selected from the five “targeted industries” outlined in the plan. The group that focused on technology-based businesses and startup discussed the challenges of keeping talented young people in Evanston instead of letting them move to downtown Chicago or Silicon Valley.
Brad Morehead, CEO of LiveWatch Security and a co-founder of investment advising group Wildcat Angels, said Evanston needs to retain its young, talented individuals, especially those coming out of Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.
“Evanston’s great at bringing in some talent but we’re net exporters of talent and companies,” Morehead said. “We have one of the best engineering schools in McCormick for computer and software development right here, yet we allow that to leave.”
A common theme among the discussion groups was the importance of continuing the discussions beyond Friday’s summit. Radzevich said she was happy with how the summit went but said talks between city officials and private citizens need to continue.
“What we were trying to get out of this is an understanding of what people generally think are the issues and challenges in each of these areas, and then what they think the opportunities are,” she said. “The discussion went well. I think we’ve got a good synergy and we really want to take advantage of that, so more to come.”
City officials told the residents in attendance that they would hold a similar summit again in the future.
