Mayors find themselves in new role: business recruiter

Have mayors suddenly become salesmen-in-chief?

This winter, the five people running for Tampa mayor have been boasting that they'll create jobs and get Tampa growing again. Mayoral candidates have said the same thing lately in Jacksonville, Louisville, Ky., and Denver.

But business recruiting isn't necessarily an easy fit for many mayors, who may be more comfortable cleaning up neighborhoods and negotiating police pensions.

Outgoing Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio did some business recruitment, but preferred boosting the economy indirectly: making life better for everyone would attract business.

Most businesspeople interviewed gave Iorio high marks overall, but a couple said she wasn't known for the nitty-gritty of negotiating development deals and boarding airplanes to lure businesses.

The next mayor will be under pressure to sell Tampa to CEOs. Carl Lindell, a land developer and former car dealer, praised Iorio for her shrewdness, but said her staff sometimes held up development projects unnecessarily, including his.

"They (mayors) absolutely should be a cheerleader for people that are getting things done in this community," Lindell said.

In every mayoral debate, candidates are being pressed about how they'll help businesses and ease the Tampa Bay area's 12 percent unemployment rate.

Mary Repper, a campaign consultant for 30 years, couldn't recall a time when job-creation was such a big issue. She disclosed that she's consulting with Tampa mayoral hopeful Ed Turanchik this year.

"I think it is now the central core of campaigns around the country, from school board to governor," she said.

Mayors normally choose one of two styles of economic development: a hands-on deal-making style, where mayors make cold calls to corporate leaders and steer development projects through city bureaucracy; or an indirect style of making the city more livable by fostering the arts, paving roads and cleaning up neighborhoods.

Ed Rendell, the Democratic mayor of Philadelphia in the 1990s and former governor of Pennsylvania, was a dealmaker, said John Claypool, who for 15 years led an economic development group called Greater Philadelphia First.

Rendell pushed for government subsidies for big developments and guided along projects such as the National Constitution Center, a museum dedicated to the U.S. Constitution, he said.

"If anything, Ed was hands-on," Claypool said.

So was Pat McCrory, the seven-term Republican mayor of Charlotte, N.C.

Charlotte flourished until the recession hit. It's hard to know how much McCrory helped and how much growth would've come anyway, said Bill McCoy, former director of the Urban Institute at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Still, "He was a networker, a hand-shaker, and he was good at it," McCoy said.

Iorio took the indirect route, which irritated some businesspeople. In a recent interview, Iorio said the mayor's role was to create a climate where businesses could flourish.

She tackled neighborhoods through nine "community redevelopment areas" - blighted neighborhoods that receive extra attention and property tax dollars.

She worked to improve people's quality of life by building museums and Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park downtown, fixing water and sewer lines and cutting crime, she said.

And she pushed hard for light-rail, which she says is important to businesses.

"Already, I get this all the time, 'I love your city, but you have no transit,' " Iorio said.

The city doesn't do business recruitment directly, she said, because it pays a third-party group called the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corp. to market the city to businesses. But she met with corporate leaders when they came to town

Over her eight years, the city and the EDC helped 22 businesses relocate or expand in Tampa. Those businesses promised to create just over 3,000 jobs, a report from the city said.

A couple years ago, the EDC (then known as the Committee of One Hundred) was dysfunctional while it was under the control of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce.

Iorio pushed it to break away from the chamber, and businesses are more optimistic about its chances to promote the economy, said Larry Richey, a longtime commercial real estate broker in Tampa and member of economic development groups.

Iorio also met regularly with the Westshore Alliance, a business group that represents companies in Tampa's West Shore area, said Ron Rotella, that group's executive director.

And, she helped make sure a prestigious medical facility picked Tampa over Orlando. The University of South Florida had been looking for a site for its future Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation, or CAMLS, which will teach physicians how to use the latest medical technology.

At one point, people from Orlando's Medical City - a large biomedical complex - tried to lure CAMLS to the Orlando area. Iorio stepped up to sell some city land in downtown Tampa to USF, USF President Judy Genshaft said.

"Most importantly, she really, really helped USF with (CAMLS)," Genshaft said.

"It wouldn't have been possible without her."

Still, Iorio wasn't known as a dealmaker.

She was more of a bureaucrat, who watched the city's pennies carefully and led the city through the recession effectively, said Repper, the political consultant who counts herself a fan of the mayor. Iorio wasn't a risk-taker, but the city wasn't able to take risks the last few years, Repper said.

"She was not the dynamic, strong mayor that a lot of people might've hoped for, but I really think that was the right thing for what happened," she said.

Deanne Roberts, a former chairman of the Tampa chamber, also praised Iorio for her stewardship of the city, and said she balanced business interests with neighborhood interests. Some businesspeople felt she didn't champion projects enough, though.

"When presented with a business opportunity, the mayor tended to send people back to build consensus with others, like neighborhood groups," Roberts said. "That was often foreign territory for the business community."

Whoever wins Tampa's mayoral race won't find it easy to create jobs. Politicians in Florida used to be able to sit back and let people and businesses flood into the state.

Nowadays, politicians will have to make sure their constituents have the right skills for growing industries, said Mark Muro, Metropolitan Policy Program director at the Brookings Institution think tank.

Building the economy will be less about stealing companies from other states and more about developing the right industries from within, Muro said. Flying around to other U.S. states to lure businesses won't make much sense, because other states won't be growing much, either.

"I do think travel to South America, Brazil and Asia makes a lot of sense, probably a lot more sense than trying to steal firms from Wichita," Muro said.

Iorio said she thinks her strategy of attracting business by improving the city overall was the right one. She knows the new mayor might have different ideas.

"I feel like I have been very active," she said. "You always find someone who thinks they would do more if they were in this position. And, you know what, maybe they will."

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