Orazem Announces Candidacy in Letter to Community

To the Ames Community:

The morning after I was elected to City Council, one person at work asked me, “so where is the Kohl’s?”  Another chimed in, “Yeah—and where is the Olive Garden?”

Ames city government cannot make firms enter our market.  What we can do is make it easier for new firms to get started and to make it easier for existing firms to expand.  As the Ames economy grows, we become more attractive to the Kohl’s and Olive Gardens.  We also become more attractive to young families who more frequently will require two jobs to move here.  When I was elected, I promised that we would remove barriers to entry in the city and make Ames a “Can Do” city.  Now when a firm starts planning a new development all possible affected city staff hold an initial meeting where possible obstacles are resolved and necessary steps are clarified.  We now have a staff position that is devoted to assisting new start-ups and expanding firms through the process.  We now have parking in Campustown.

And we have results.  According to Iowa Workforce Development data, we added 1,900 jobs to the Ames economy between December 2009 and December 2012.  We did that despite no net growth in government jobs.  We did that despite the fact that Ames had lost jobs between December 1999 and December 2009.  We did that despite the slowest national economic recovery in the postwar era.  As a result of our successes, we increased our retail sales faster than the rest of the state – a critical issue because our government support for arts, human services and school infrastructure depends on sales tax revenue.  Even though we voted to spend 61 cents per $1000 in assessed property value to support our new library expansion, we only have to spend 52 cents in part because we added to our commercial and residential property value and in part because the city’s financial strength allowed us an unusually low interest rate.  And we paid off our school infrastructure debt 11 years ahead of schedule.  We added kids to our schools after losing almost 500 kids since 1997.  Just since 2012, we were ranked among the best places to live for retirees, for college graduates, for work-life balance and for families and we placed highly on national rankings of the best places to start a business.

We could say that the successes of the past 41 months are enough and that we no longer need to foster private sector expansion.  After all, we have a Kohl’s.  But with 42% of our jobs in the government sector, we absolutely must continue to diversify our employment base into private enterprise.  At all levels of government, budget realities will constrain our ability to maintain the same level of public sector employment. 

Ames still faces many challenges.  We are viewed as a prime location for new businesses but we have no commercial sites available over 20 acres.  Ankeny boasts over 700 acres available for commercial use and touts proximity to Iowa State as a reason to locate in Ankeny.  We are very attractive to new families but we have to provide additional space for homes.  We have the excitement of newly built and renovated public schools but we have to come up with the best uses for freed up school property.  And we have to develop cost effective and scientifically sound ways to limit the damage from floods in an environment where the federal government is less likely to help us pay for mitigation.

I am seeking election in the third ward to continue to move Ames forward.  I am convinced that we can maintain the pace of our successes.  Maybe we can get that Olive Garden.  More importantly, we will get other new start-ups both big and small if we strive to maintain and enhance our business climate.

Peter F. Orazem

Ames City Council