No consensus on best way to run BEAR

By Richard Shaw

While the meeting of minds on Monday night on the future of the Business Expansion and Retention program was meant to open lines of communication and clear up things between the county, which wants changes to the program, and BEAR supporters who are concerned about the county’s intentions to apply to the state for funding for another BEAR program, it was unclear whether it accomplished its goal by the time the evening was through.
It appeared supporters on both sides still had some reservations about doing things differently than they had originally planned, but the discussions were fruitful, though tempered.
The meeting was hosted by the county commission with Jae Potter presiding.
“What we want is the best program we can have in the area,” he said. “With this new RFP (Request for Proposal) from the state this year I am hoping that rural Utah can have a bigger voice.”
He brought up the fact that the new RFP looked a lot more at performance and that the state wants a Memorandum of Understanding with whatever organization receives the funding to perform the BEAR program. He also wondered about whether it might be better for Emery and Carbon to each apply separately.
He said that the funding deadline for applications had been moved back to June 19, rather than June 12 as was reported in the Sun Advocate in Tuesday’s paper.
Two weeks ago Carbon County Economic Director Tammy Ursenbach wrote a letter to the commissioners which stated she was concerned about some of what she had perceived had been going on in BEAR. At the same time she made a proposal that the county could submit to get the funding for a BEAR program that would have up to a 16 person steering committee if Emery was included in the mix.
The Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) has said that only one entity from each county could be chosen to host the program.
Ethan Migliori, who was one of the people that was early on in forming the present BEAR operation in 2005, and is now an Emery County Commissioner, spoke to the point of the idea of Emery being by itself.
“I am only speaking as one individual here, but I would love to see funding for Emery,” he began.”But the fact is that we took a regional approach because the funds have been limited.”
He also said that he was not confident a new approach would bring more money in for BEAR and that he worries about a program that might be controlled by a government entity.
“I want to see BEAR with its own autonomy,” he said. “I don’t want to see political influence affecting the program. The model we now have has worked in the past.”
Price Mayor Joe Piccolo stated that he too liked the fact that the program is autonomous.
“I agree with Ethan,” he said. “We need BEAR to be able to operate quickly. I am not sure everything they do now is exactly right, but instead of the starting over we should work together to work out the concerns.”
Karl Kranyc, who is the present director of the BEAR program as head of the five person executive board said that he was stunned by the fact that county was considering such a move.
“I talked with both Commissioners (Jake) Mellor and (Casey) Hopes only a couple of weeks ago and they said they had no problem with the program as it was being run,” he said. “The proposal the county has seems to place all the control under the county. To ask for this input afterward by using this meeting seems anachronistic. It strikes me that the county has already made the decision (to apply for the funds).
“If you had specific concerns why were they not routed through your representative on the executive board (Ursenbach)?” asked Kranyc.
Potter said that there has been a lot of hearsay concerning the subject but that nothing really matters as long as the program fits the county and operates correctly. He also said that some of the things in the situation may have been premature.
“What we are doing is not trying to kill BEAR, but we want some things changed,” he said. “If you want the 501C3 (the type of organization BEAR is now) to come up with it, then that is okay. But we must meet the RFP the state has put out.”
Kranyc insisted that the latest RFP as it stands is not that much different or is a departure from the past RFP’s BEAR has met.
“This was set up to be sure BEAR is not politicized,” he said.
Nichole Steele from the Division of Workforce Services asked how much different what the county wanted to do was from the present BEAR structure.
Potter said that the present RFP requests specifics on how the BEAR team is made up, how meetings will be held, how BEAR uses community resources and it requires a steering committee that would be much larger than the existing executive board that would be used to guide the program. He said metrics and specifics were important.
Kranyc said that what the commissioner listed was largely how BEAR was operating presently.
“At the beginning of the program we asked Helper businesses what they needed and they told us marketing help,” he said. “At the time we worked with CEU (now USU Eastern) and the Small Business Development Center and did some multi-week training with them. This kind of work has been the benchmark of BEAR since then. We have looked at the patterns and trends for the last 10 years.”
Piccolo pointed out that what has made BEAR go is the volunteerism of those involved and the fact that it is has been flexible and “not ironclad in purpose.”
“BEAR needs to be responsive and not tied up with red tape,” stated the mayor.
Ryan Murray, the Director of the Small Business Development and Custom Fit program, said that he had been working with a BEAR sub-committee to improve BEAR, something they have been calling BEAR 2.0.
“WE have been worried about the quality of the referrals (done by the BEAR out reach team),” said Murray. “We want out reach to identify a number of factors and to focus on one of those needs. We want to know who are the players that can help. We want to be strong on guidelines rather than metrics. We want to take a business approach, not a government approach.”
Kraync said that BEAR is constantly evaluating itself and what is right and wrong with the program.
“We have had some missteps,” he said. “Things at times have come unwound, but we are constantly making course corrections.”
The Castle Country BEAR program has been the model for the state in the past. In fact it started in the area and now many areas around the state have one. That has put added pressure on the money available.
Piccolo said that the new RFP came out wanting more and more information because the “slices of the pie are getting thinner and thinner.”
Kathy Smith, a Price City Councilwoman said that she hasn’t seen that the program is broken.
“Maybe the program just needs to tweak the metrics,” she said.
Questions have arisen as to whether the programs out reach is measuring accurately but Piccolo said that he can see that the programs stats are right.
“Price City is a poster child for sales tax revenue,” he stated. “We can see the difference with BEAR and what it was like before BEAR. BEAR should be about creating first line employment and helping the college.”
Potter said the whole issue was not about sponsoring the program but that the county wanted to be more involved in it.
The county does hold a seat on the BEAR executive board in the form of the county’s economic development director.
Kraync pointed out that the program is the communities program and that the organization’s tries to get as many people involved as possible.
“The people who attend are from all walks of life,” he said. “Our message to come to meetings goes out to everyone we have on our list. And we always remind them that the program is theirs.”
USU Eastern Chancellor Joe Peterson said that he thought that an approach to what is best for business should be the emphasis, and that the ideas expressed should all be considered.
“We should look at the question of how the board should be organized,” he said. “My question is can we do that by weighing the pros of a broad based consensus? We need to find the sweet spot that brings the highest returns.”
Business owner Tony Basso said that he thought the program had worked well for his operations.
“Only two entities in the area have taken an interest in our businesses,” said Basso. “That is CEU and BEAR. You know you can stop a train with a four inch block of wood when it first gets rolling, but once it gets going it can plow through a five foot wall of concrete. This organization has momentum. The have brought back information I can use to run my businesses. This is your decision commissioner, and we will honor that. But please keep it as an organization with less structure.”
Potter said that any sponsorship by the county would only make them he fiscal agent.
“It doesn’t matter to me, but the new RFP spells this out,” he said. “It is not as radical a change as it appears, but it must be done.”
Ursenbach said that there are several more counties looking for funding for programs this year. She also said that the new economic director in Emery County has told her that people in Emery County would like to have more visits and some of the general meetings there.
It was suggested that meetings could possibly be rotated. This brought up the issue of Emery County having their own BEAR program.
However Murray said he thinks that would not work.
“I sit on the board of both Carbon and Emery Counties Chambers and I don’t think a meeting would fly there,” he said. “I don’t think it would benefit Emery to have their own.”
At that point a number of people had to leave the meeting, but one other issue that has become a center point was raised afterward. It concerned the polling that BEAR did during last year’s elections in Carbon County.
“I knew about it because I got one of the calls,” said Potter, who was running for election at the time. “If you want to talk about making BEAR political, look at that.”
A number of people on the board agreed that that should not have happened.
In the end the meeting adjourned with a feeling that all sides had been heard and that possibly there could be some cooperation between the two camps on the submission of the proposal.