Summit mulls 'what's happening'

KOOTENAI — “The economy is like Ben Affleck — it’s in an advanced state of aging but it continues to reinvent itself,” said Sam Wolkenhauer, economist with the Idaho Department of Labor, as part of his presentation Thursday during the annual “What’s Happening Up North” economic summit at the Sandpoint Technical Center.

The day was filled with speakers from the Sandpoint area and around the state who spoke on topics of the current state of the local and state economies, what is being done to improve it and what can be done to improve it. Some of the topics focused on health, education, tax incentives and land use.

Wolkenhauer’s presentation focused on the state of the economy and labor. When discussing economic health, people often look at the unemployment rate, but Wolkenhauer started off by saying the unemployment rate is “basically meaningless.”

“It is really not the best measure of economic health because your unemployment rate can go down for reasons that have nothing to do with improving economy,” Wolkenhauer said.

Wolkenhauer concluded that economic trends in Idaho are the product of two intersecting forces: an aging workforce and technology. Baby boomer retirement and the migration of millennials, he said, creates challenges for the rural workforce. Since 2000, the 65 and older population has grown 97 percent in Bonner County, Wolkenhauer said. Ages 15 to 64 has increased by five percent and 14 and younger is negative 10 percent. Technology has affected many areas of industry as well. Employment in areas like retail and professional services has gone down by as much as 12 percent in North Idaho since 2005. The construction industry had more than 1,500 employees in North Idaho in 2005, and in 2015 there was 862 — a 43-percent drop.

Sandpoint City Administrator Jennifer Stapleton began the city updates portion of the summit by announcing that the city is about to be “lit” with high-speed fiber Internet. The city’s administration buildings should be lit by Nov. 16, she said, and public Wi-Fi will be available at Jeff Jones Town Square as well. She said they hope to extend the public Wi-Fi to Farmin Park so vendors of events like the Farmer’s Market will be able to do business with the speed of fiber.

While the city will have initial use of the fiber, Stapleton said the infrastructure for economic development is in the ground as well.

“We’ve been working with a consultant we brought on board, Design Nine, earlier this summer to develop a business and operations management plan,” she said. “They are out next week and we anticipate having that complete in the next couple of weeks.”

The operation management plan will include leasing rates for Internet service providers who are interested in expanding their service capabilities to businesses and homes throughout the city. The city of Sandpoint is working with the county and surrounding cities as well, so the entire area will eventually be connected by fiber.

Mayor Shelby Rognstad was one of the final speakers of the day and “rehashed” the highlights of the day and pointed out that the community has overcome the loss of Coldwater Creek two years ago.

“To look at the amount of growth and the resilient response from this community has been really remarkable,” Rognstad said. “It’s really exciting and it feels like a privilege to be a part of it.”

Health was one of the topics of the day because, Rognstad pointed out, health affects quality of life, which directly affects the economy by developing a strong, able workforce.

Rognstad also said he is going to devote his training and resources toward education, because there is an ongoing challenge in Idaho with funding for education.

“We sit in a community with burgeoning technology industries rapidly growing,” he said. “In fact, growing so fast they can’t find a workforce to fill the need … and it’s incumbent upon us to solve this problem, because, as you heard from the lieutenant governor today, the state can’t do it for us. I certainly wish that was the case, that we could expect more funding from Boise, but this is our problem.”

Lt. Gov. Brad Little, who was the keynote speaker for the event, pointed to the economic success in Bonner County with companies like Idaho Forest Group, Quest Aircraft, Litehouse and Kochava, which continue to thrive. He also said the state is business friendly and responsive, comparing it to a hotel concierge. To have have a successful economy, he said, there should be a single point of contact to answer questions for “all your business needs.”

Most important, he said, Idaho needs to provide a workforce. It could be done “organically,” he said, which included career-technical education to provide skills in certain areas, particularly the manufacturing area. He said Idaho is growing fast enough it is time to recruit people back who have “fled.”

“Whether they’ve gone to the oil fields, whether they’ve gone to Seattle, whether they’ve gone to the Silicon Valley,” Little said. “Right now, we need to be actively recruiting those people back to Idaho.”