Council hopefuls gather

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BROOKINGS – Candidates for Brookings City Council met at the City & County Government Center on Saturday, tackling topics such as subsidy requests and economic development.

Isaiah Croatt, Dan Hansen, Ope Niemeyer and Nick Schmeichel are vying for two three-year seats on the Council, currently held by Hansen and Niemeyer. The Brookings Area Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Committee organized the gathering ahead of the April 11 city/school election.

Economic development

Responses varied on how each candidate thought the city should focus its resources for economic development.

Hansen said Brookings isn’t ready and doesn’t have enough workers to recruit another large-scale employer like Bel Brands. Instead, the city needs to focus on entrepreneurship and workforce development.

“Really, what the Council’s done in the past couple of years is focus on entrepreneurship,” he said, citing the city’s downtown retail grants, partnering with the Brookings Economic Development Corp. to create new events like the pop-up market and partnering with Lake Area Technical Institute. “I think that’s what we really need to look at when it comes to economic development, not focus so much on recruiting new, big businesses to Brookings, but really look at ways we can support in those who want to invest in the community, start their own business.”

Niemeyer said the city and the BEDC already work together in a number of areas, and the city already has a policy on how it sells its land, which has been criticized by some as not fair or inconsistent.

“It depends on the company, how many employees they bring. There’s a lot of different factors in the formula that BEDC has developed to verify what do they bring to the table and how much economic development impact they’re going to have,” he said.

He also cited the need to keep SDSU graduates, and even students who have started college here but don’t plan to finish, in Brookings.

Schmeichel said Brookings needs to start thinking small and not focus exclusively on retail.

“Daktronics and Larson’s were small businesses as well, and they grew into big players in this community, and they’re also big taxpayers in this community as well. … I’d like to see us focus on recruiting other small businesses, growing them to the point where we do have another large business like that. As the city grows, that business can grow with it.”

Croatt promoted the idea of support for growing and expanding existing businesses rather than focusing so much on recruiting new enterprises.

“One of the things I’ve enjoyed seeing that the retail grant has done downtown is expand two existing businesses in Brookings and helping them grow to the point they hire some more employees or change a building, expand their services,” Croatt said.

Subsidy requests

As part of the Brookings’ annual budgeting process, it takes subsidy requests from local nonprofit organizations seeking city funding. Considering the requests and how much to give what groups usually takes a lot of the Council’s time, but it represents a very small portion of the budget.

Schmeichel said councilors need to consider what betterment the groups are bringing to the community.

“If community funds are going to be used … it should bring a benefit to the community as a whole. I’d like to see that watched and looked over carefully. … If it’s not helping, where can we better use those funds?”

Hansen said the city should develop a scoring system “so that people who are applying for these funds know what the expectations are ... so that as we evaluate their requests we can actually have a system that we can consistently apply from one request to the next.”

Niemeyer said subsidy requests have been difficult for the Council as long as he’s served, and it can be a political or emotional process. That’s why it’s good for city staff to make recommendations.

Another concern is entitlement. “‘We got it last year, so why can’t we have it again this year?’ Or ‘we’ve lost funding from some other entity so we’re going to need it from you.’ We have to justify whether or not it’s something that’s for the good of the citizens of Brookings,” Niemeyer said.

Croatt said considering the funding requests can’t be much fun for the Council, and the group should distance itself from the process and question whether a subsidy is smart for the city.

“I’d like to see a lot of our organizations continue to be funded, but not in a way that would impede other portions of our budget,” he said.

Contact Jill Fier at jfier@brookingsregister.com.