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Back You are here: Home News News Business Not cool, people. Not cool.

Not cool, people. Not cool.

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Imagine going to a public meeting as part of your normal job and finding out, at the same time everybody else does, that your job — indeed your employer — has changed.

That's what happened to staff at the Economic Development Council of Central Illinois on Tuesday. Either by conference call or in person, I'm told, they participated in a meeting of the Economic Development Regional Steering Committee and heard their numbers had been reduced to two people. Further, they heard those two were to start reporting to the Technical Working Group of the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission.

 

The thing is, none of these moves had been approved as yet by the board of either the EDC or its parent, the Heartland Partnership family of companies or else they weren't aware the announcement was going to be made. In either case, while they and the staff of the EDC and Heartland Partnership were aware such moves were coming, the staff hadn't been officially informed as yet.

One person I talked with said the EDC office was somewhat in chaos after the announcement, but nobody there would talk about it on the record. Instead the Heartland Partnership released this statement:

"This information released today regarding changes in EDC staffing and to whom the remaining EDC staff reports did not come from HP or the EDC. Our staff has not been notified of any such changes. While we are aware that this is the direction we were heading, at this time NO changes to this extent have been made by the EDC or HP. We were told this announcement was made today by the regional steering committee (chairman is Jim Baumgartner) and the Technical Working Group (lead is Denny Kief).  This announcement did not come from us." 

Mark Spenny, chairman of the Heartland Partnership who last week was appointed to the Steering Committee only after he asked to be, was not at the committee's meeting this morning — because he wasn't invited. Apparently the Partnership was told that Spenny was mistakenly left off the invitation list.

This is disconcerting to say the least. Even if the moves going on are for the best — and I am not convinced of that as yet, nor are many others — this smacks of disrespect toward the Heartland Partnership, the EDC and their staffs and boards. It seems it has been going on for weeks, even before Jim McConoughey resigned as president and CEO of the Partnership because he, too, saw the proverbial writing on the wall.

The steering committee and its consultant, urban planning expert Frank Knott, say they will be transparent and indeed, the report by Knott and his group, ViTAL Economy, that led to the upheaval is available for perusal on the Tri-County Regional Planning Committee website. And there is probably no way this could have been handled that would leave everybody feeling good about it.

However, this latest incident left a lot of people angry and upset. It's tough to expect loyalty from employees who don't know if they are going to be blindsided. It's tough to expect support from civic leaders, elected to prestigious boards of directors for the simple reason that they are leaders, if they feel they are being kept in the dark.

That does not foster the kind of cohesiveness needed for good economic development. Indeed, it could cause deep rifts in the community, even if it is Caterpillar Inc. leading the EDC reorganization charge.

Baumgartner, who is director of corporate public affairs at Caterpillar, said Tuesday evening that there are three left on the EDC staff rather than two, including CEO Vickie Clark. He also said he takes responsibility for the Spenny omission. However, he said the rest of what happened shows that there is still a lot of work to be done on the communications end of the reorganization. He said the function of telling EDC staff what was about to be announced should have been that of Cal MacKay, the interim CEO of the Heartland Partnership.

Still, he relented, "With all the changes going on and with so many moving parts, it is perhaps not surprising there has been some lack of communication. We were under impression these three were told what was happening. It's unfortunate this happened because these people already have been working under some duress."

Baumgartner said he doesn't believe any fence mending is needed except with those three. He said the cooperation between the Steering Committee and the boards of the Heartland Partnership and EDC have changed completely, for the good, in the last 30 days.

That may be the case, but to think that's where that buck stops is, in my opinion, short sighted. To leave out others in the community, especially business owners and leaders and the not-for-profit agencies in the region, would be a mistake. Ask around; that spirit of cooperation isn't where it should be yet and it will take work by everybody involved to get it there.

Paul Gordon is editor of The Peorian. He can be reached at 692-7880 or editor@thepeorian.com

About the Author
Paul Gordon is the editor of The Peorian after spending 29 years of indentured servitude at the Peoria Journal Star. He’s an award-winning writer, raconteur and song-and-dance man. He also went to a high school whose team name is the Alices (that’s Vincennes Lincoln High School in Indiana; you can look it up).