Durable Goods
The conference table is quartersawn white oak. Governor Branstad greets Mayor Gluba first, and shakes hands with Aldermen Gordon and Edmond next. I go last, cause I’m the hired help. The non-partisan hired help so, with the Governor’s Legislative Liaison Jake Ketzner with us, the room has four Republicans, one Democrat (just guessing, we’re a non-partisan City government) and … me. The affiliations in the room never comes up in the conversation. This is a practical state, with practical leaders.
The quartersawn white oak has me distracted, but I don’t think anyone notices. It is my second favorite wood to build furniture with, rising to number one when the furniture has to withstand daily toil. When I arrived at the Douglas County Courthouse some 15 years ago to work, they had bought some new furniture for my new position. It was a nice gesture, but when I wandered into the basement of the historic courthouse late one night, I found a treasure trove of well-worn quartersawn (say that three times fast) tables and chairs that had been tossed aside. It was beautifully crafted, so I spent several nights restoring the furnishings and swapped out the new with the old. I’m chagrined to report some people didn’t quite understand and asked me why I got rid of the new, veneered stuff.
Fast forward to Monday, and we’ve come to chat with Governor Branstad about a few topics of shared interest. We’d like to help grow Iowa’s economy, thank him for appointing Dan Huber to the Transportation Commission and help grow Iowa’s economy. That was not an editing error. We’d like to help build Iowa’s economy, and it bears repeating.
We tell him there are multiple developers looking to invest a total of $122 million in our historic buildings, pending success with State Historic Tax Credits. We tell him we expect to reapply to have a State Reinvestment District created in Davenport, and provide an excerpt from last year’s application that projected a $7.4 billion economic impact for the project. We discuss adding Davenport to Iowa’s Targeted Jobs Tax Credit Withholding program. This border city economic development program was created several years ago, and was recently expanded and extended. Davenport is Iowa’s largest border city, just across the river from Iowa’s largest bordering economy, and it just makes sense to have us included in the program.
We’ve created a one-page infographic that summarizes the opportunity, and as I slide a few spare copies across the conference table to Legislative Liaison Ketzner, Governor Branstad suggests we discuss the opportunity with Iowa Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham. We thank the Governor for his time and tell him we’ll follow up with IEDA.
Just one of the myriad ways life in Iowa is truly exceptional is the manner in which the vast majority of government officials conduct themselves. Republican. Democrat. Doesn’t matter a whole lot. There’s a shared sense of responsibility. Hawkeye. Cyclone. Bee. Some geographic nuance but a decency and work ethic that’s not far removed from the land. There’s a durability to common sense and working together that is as ingrained in a six time governor or four time mayor as the table they sit at together.
