DETROIT FREE PRESS

MACOMB COUNTY NEEDS EXECUTIVE

BY TOM WALSH • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • March 16, 2008

Macomb County's standing as the economic straggler of Detroit's tri-county region is as clear as the commuting patterns each weekday morning on the I-696 and I-94 freeways.
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Lots more cars and trucks are heading out of Macomb than into it, because there are lots more jobs in neighboring Oakland and Wayne counties than in Macomb.

According to 2000 census data, 2.3 Macomb residents were commuting to work in Oakland for each Oakland resident driving the other way. And there were 27% more Macomb folks heading to work in Wayne than vice versa.

If anything, the economic gap between Macomb and the Oakland-Wayne suburbs is growing wider. Macomb is the most dependent of the three counties on manufacturing jobs, which have disappeared at an alarming rate the past seven years. And Macomb is the least equipped to attract cutting-edge companies in life sciences or information technology, because they tend to cluster near four-year universities, which Macomb doesn't have.

Last week, when the first 22 awards totaling $4.8 million from Michigan's new Pre-Seed Capital Fund for promising new growth companies were made, two went to companies in Oakland, two more to Wayne County, three apiece to Lansing and Kalamazoo, a bunch more to Ann Arbor -- and none to Macomb.

What can Macomb County do to revive job growth and boost its economic standing in the region?

Business leaders there are pushing to create a strong county executive, with powers similar to those of L. Brooks Patterson or Robert Ficano, the executives in Oakland and Wayne counties.

Both the Focus Macomb group of corporate executives and the Macomb County Chamber of Commerce have endorsed a proposal on the May 6 election ballot to create a charter commission, which would establish a Macomb executive and debate other aspects of government structure, such as the number of elected commissioners, etc.

It's about time, if Macomb really wants to play in the big leagues of economic development in a major metro area.

"We need a leader in Macomb County who can make things happen," says Grace Shore, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce.

Macomb is governed by a 26-member Board of Commissioners, each elected from a small sliver of the county. "We need someone who is elected by the whole county and accountable to the whole county," Shore says.

Roy Rose, co-chair for Focus Macomb and president of the Anderson Eckstein & Westrick architectural firm in Shelby Township, said good ideas or business deals can be accomplished more quickly with a county executive than with commissioners "who have to politic and get 13 other votes for anything they want to do."

While the traditional Detroit Three auto companies have been shrinking, one area of job growth in the region recently has come from foreign investment in technical centers and automotive component plants. But much of that new investment from European and Asian firms has gone into Oakland County and western Wayne towns like Plymouth and Canton, with little going to Macomb.

That's no accident. Patterson and Ficano have been traveling for years on trade and investment missions to Europe, Mexico, China, Japan and India. Macomb has just begun sending some of its planning department officials on such trips. But as Rose says, a planner from Macomb doesn't carry the same weight as a county executive -- and in many foreign countries, titles and rank are of considerable importance when discussing possible deals.

William Crouchman, chairman of the Macomb County commissioners, has mixed feelings about the push for an executive in Macomb.

He says he supports creation of a county executive, in principle, as a more efficient way to run things. "Sitting here as chairman," Crouchman says, "I can tell you that the current structure is extremely slow and cumbersome."

But he adds that he's worried that there hasn't been enough discussion about what form a new government structure would take, and if a new charter is "written up in a hurry, I'd be concerned about political mischief."

Well, political mischief should always be a concern, but there's plenty of that at play already.

Republican commissioners on the Macomb board have opposed the county executive idea, and joined with several Democrats to defeat an earlier effort to enact a county-executive structure by vote of the board instead of a ballot issue.

When the Detroit Regional Chamber expressed support for a county executive structure, that same alliance of Republicans and a few Democrats on the Macomb board held up last year's payment of the county's annual $67,000 contribution to support the Detroit Regional Economic Partnership, a 10-county public-private collaboration that spends close to $2 million a year to promote the region around the world.

Only after an official came out and explained to the Macomb board that the partnership -- which includes 100 private-sector investors -- is not an arm of the Detroit chamber did the commission relent and cough up Macomb's payment.

It's precisely that kind of foolishness that Macomb could avoid with a full-time, fully accountable executive who can be a strong partner with other regional leaders on economic and other issues.