Downtown Junkie

Midland Development Corp receives 2009 Workforce Development Best Practice Award

Pat Jamison, TEDC Workforce Committee Chair, Tracy Dau, Doug Henson, and Mike Hatley

Jim Sharp, former Comptroller, State of Texas, and Laura Roman

The 2009 TEDC Spring Conference is from April 29 - May 1, 2009, and is being held in our great city at the Midland Hilton Plaza.  Members of various Texas economic development and legislative groups have arrived to network and strategize about the development of economic and employment opportunities in Texas.

Yesterday, I was asked to co-facilitate on a panel discussion regarding efforts to revitalize downtowns.  Other cities represented on the panel were New Braunfels (and boy, am I ready to head down there soon to check out what they’ve done!), Eden, and Paris, Texas.  It was a great round-table discussion and certainly demonstrated that all cities were concerned about improving their downtowns.

This morning, the TEDC Spring 2009 Awards Breakfast was held.  Jerry Morales, Midland City Councilman, welcomed the 150+ group to our city and the TEDC Chair, Danny Booth, did a great job on summarizing what was going on now in Texas economic development and initiatives taken with their PAC.  Most exciting for me, the TEDC honored the Midland Development Group with its 2009 Workforce Best Practices Award for Cities 100,000 and up in population.  That means Midland (pop. 103,000) was competing against the likes of our largest cities, i.e. Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin.  Such efforts as the initiatives taken by the workforce development group to bring in new workers into a city with the lowest unemployment rate in the state were noted.

After the awards ceremony, the group was treated to the musings of the keynote speaker, Mr. John Sharp,  former Comptroller for the State of Texas.  Talk about food for thought!  While he described that Texas has always lead the country in development of natural resources (cattle, cotton, and oil & gas), he pointed out that our next “natural” resource was our human resource.  Because the number of people coming in to the workforce is shrinking compared to those planned to exit in the next several years, employers will be scrambling to find where the most available human resources are.  He essentially summarized that Texas has had the highest birth rate and we lead the country in new employees soon to enter the workforce.  So, if that workforce is skilled and educated, we can count our people as our 4th success in natural resource supply.  He enforced how important our public education system is to developing that future human resource.  It was a great speech and lots to take away and think about, and I was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet Mr. Sharp afterwards.

I’m not a big fan of just outright complaining, but I’m going to do it.  DOWNTOWN MIDLAND NEEDS MORE AVAILABLE PARKING. 

Today, I met a friend for lunch at Cancun Grill.  I was about 5 minutes late for lunch because I couldn’t find a parking space.  Now I should have walked from my building, but I like to wear very high heels, so I drove instead.  I parked in a spot that probably wasn’t the best choice, and was lucky coming out of lunch that my car didn’t have a ticket or worse, had been towed.  My friend, on the other hand, was about 15 minutes late, due to lack of parking.  Nothing was available. 

The owner, Joe Torres, was afraid I had been stood up for my lunch appointment, but when I told him about the parking issue, he suggested behind the library.  I might as well walk from my building.

The point is, I want to see Downtown restaurants and retail not only survive, but THRIVE downtown.  But is it possible if it is so inconvenient to just be able to park?  We need a solution.

Family Fun at the Children’s Museum

Saturday, May 2

6:30 – 8:00pm

Free Admission

The Museum of the Southwest Children’s Museum is hosting an Opening Celebration for its newest exhibit, THE SPACE SPOT!   Interactive exhibits will include weighing yourself on other planets (kids will love, mothers will not go near J), connecting the stars, Swirl World, Planet Shuffle, Indoor Planetarium Show, Touch a Meteorite, and much more!

Food will be available at $3 per person for Astrodogs, Moon Pies, and Tang.  Feel free to bring your blanket and picnic on the beautiful grounds of the Museum of the Southwest.