Quad City Times, IA
03/19/06
Economy in motion
By Ed Tibbetts
CLINTON, Iowa — Last fall, Boegel’s Men’s Wear, the oldest men’s clothing
store in downtown Clinton, broke with tradition.
It added a ladies line.
It wasn’t an easy decision. Since 1908, Boegel’s clientele had been strictly men.
Times have changed, though, and while much of the business is still centered on
selling men pants, shirts and suits, gone are the days when there were a dozen
haberdasheries in the area and it could center on just one gender.
“We wanted to get more people in,” explains Bobbi Boegel Scherer, a Boegel’s
co-owner.
Like Boegel’s, eastern Iowa’s industrial economy is changing, too.
Cities like Davenport, Dubuque, Waterloo and Clinton, wracked by the economic
fallout of the 1980s, are reinventing themselves. Manufacturing, despite the loss
of thousands of jobs, is still a centerpiece in many local economies but is
increasingly augmented by service-oriented jobs.
Meanwhile, cities are seeking out advanced manufacuring and value-added
agriculture jobs, with varying degrees of success.
It’s against this backdrop that eastern Iowa is electing a new congressman in the
12-county 1st Congressional District this year.
The district, one of five in Iowa, includes the Quad-Cities, Dubuque and the
Waterloo/Cedar Falls area. For the first time in decades, the seat has no
incumbent seeking re-election, and consequently, seven Republicans and
Democrats are vying for it in one of the most closely watched races in the
country.
Economy’s an issue
In any election, the economy is an issue, and that’s especially true in the 1st
District. And it continues to be true in a district that struggles to transform itself. In
seven of the 12 counties, population has shrunk since 2000; in nine of the 12, the
unemployment rate exceeded the statewide average last year.
The areas around Des Moines and Cedar Rapids are growing faster, though
Dubuque has had more success than its sisters along the Mississippi River. Still,
it’s an economy in the midst of a long transition.
As much as any metropolitan area in the 1st District, Clinton has seen the ills of
the 1980s. It sought to right itself and now is laying the groundwork for future
growth, economic officials and business leaders say.
It’s had some successes. Jobs grew in 2005, the second consecutive year it
added nonfarm jobs to the economy. Building permits are up. Unemployment
was down from the year before. But over the past five years, the county has
added only a net 400 new nonfarm jobs, and its average unemployment rate was
5.1 percent, down from a year earlier but still three-quarters of a point higher than
in 2001.
A handful of rural counties are doing worse.
“I think most people feel Clinton has stabilized,” says Bob Holsinger, the
president of Clinton County Bio Energy, a new biodiesel plant going up on the
outskirts of the city. It plans to begin operations in June.
Local economic development officials say the economy is doing better than most
people think. Just last week, the Archer Daniels Midland Co., or ADM,
announced plans to open a new plastics plant here. The company also is building
a coal-fired power plant to supply its nearby facility.
Area leaders also have big plans for their community — and they’re keenly aware
of the upcoming midterm election.
In fact, the federal government figures prominently into their plans.
For example, the $52 million Liberty Square redevelopment project got a $13
million infusion from the federal highway bill last year.
Slated to begin by 2009, Liberty Square entails building a couplet of one-way
roads along a gritty industrial section of U.S. 30 and 67 between Camanche and
Liberty avenues and setting aside land for business.
Local officials credit the partnership between U.S. Reps. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, and
Don Manzullo, R-Illinois, with helping to secure the money. Manzullo, the
chairman of the House Small Business Committee, represents Fulton across the
Mississippi River. With Nussle leaving Congress — he’s running for governor this
year — a new working relationship with Manzullo will need to be established.
Dennis Lauver, the president of the Clinton Area Chamber of Commerce, says
chamber members have interviewed all the congressional hopefuls and made
their goals clear.
“For us, it’s: what are we doing with the folks in Washington, D.C., to see some of
our tax dollars come back here,” he said. Since 1999, Clinton and Whiteside
counties have received $50 million in federal funding.
In addition to Liberty Square, there are plans to develop a 1,000-acre business
park along U.S. 30 leading into the city, which will require a rail spur. The
development of a barge terminal on the Mississippi River to build upon its rail and
river strengths is also being explored.
“Our biggest need is infrastructure — bar none,” says Steven Ames, the
president of the Clinton Area Development Corp.
The development corporation also includes parts of Illinois.
Renewable future
Clinton also is hoping value-added agriculture will be a building block for its
economy. On the outskirts of the city, the Clinton County Bio Energy plant will be
the area’s first renewable fuel plant. It will be capable of producing 10 million
gallons of biodiesel per year. The plant is one of two under development in the
county.
For years, state leaders have encouraged businesses to leap into ventures that
add value to the crops Iowa farmers produce, and a local group of 20 people
decided to do just that last year. Holsinger says he opposes mandates to use
renewable fuels, but he and his brother, Dan, vice president of the company,
both say the government needs to continue providing incentives to spur
development.
The $8 million plant will add 10 employees and should boost the prices farmers
are getting for their soybeans.
“I think I can see some real major growth potential in the agricultural part of the
economy in Clinton County,” Bob Holsinger says.
They say they see little difference among Republicans and Democrats with
respect to their loyalty to renewable energy. Both sides are on their side.
However, outside the Midwest, there is considerable debate about the value of
the incentives. Currently only a fraction of the nation’s fuel supply comes from
biodiesel, even far less than ethanol, but it is growing rapidly. “We’ve got great
expectations,” says Bob Holsinger, “but we never know what the legislators are
going to do.”
Their success also plays a part in the success of the business park, Ames says.
Development officials are seeking federal funding for a rail spur near the bioenergy plant in the hopes it will open up land they own in the area for other
businesses. One they have in mind is a soybean crushing operation.
Opinions vary
Local opinions about the economy differ. “It’s mediocre at best,” says Phil Shaw,
who owns a brake and alignment shop on the south side.
Dave Keefer, a union plumber and the president of the Clinton Labor Congress, a
unit of the AFL-CIO with 2,600 active and retired members, says he’s had to go
to the Quad-Cities to find work but is optimistic the economy for his members will
get better, particularly with the ADM projects. “At any given time, we’ve had 150
to 200 people (on a waiting list for work),” he says. The expectation is that will be
cleared by September.
eanwhile, an economics researcher says that manufacturing will always be at the
core of economies along the Mississippi, including Clinton’s. “That is and will
remain a very important component of those river cities’ strength,” says David
Swenson, an economics researcher at Iowa State University.
The key, he says, will be for area leaders to recognize their assets, build upon
them and, at the same time, recognize emerging businesses and seek them out.
“It’s kind of like owning a dairy. You’re only going to get so much milk out of a
cow,” Swenson says. “You can only get so much industry out of existing
industrial stock.”
Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com.
About the district
Iowa’s 1st Congressional District encompasses 12 counties taking in the gritty
industrial centers of the Quad-Cities and Waterloo, the rolling hills of Dubuque
County and the flat farmland of Butler County.
The metro areas of Waterloo/Cedar Falls and Dubuque have historically been
Democratic strongholds, although Dubuque also includes a strong anti-abortion
segment, due to its Catholic influence. The fast-growing city of Bettendorf adds a
strong Republican flavor to the district, though, and many of the rural areas also
have tended to vote GOP.
In the 2004 presidential race, the district favored U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.,
over President Bush.
About the series
This is the first in a series that explores the issues and places in Iowa’s 1st
Congressional District.
This year, the battle for the seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa,
is one of the most closely watched in the country.
Democrats, if they hope to retake the House, have to win seats like this one,
where voters typically favor Democratic presidential and gubernatorial
candidates. Republicans seeking to hold on to their majority in the House have
counted this seat in their column for 30 years.