Outside Erie

What a great week of debate.

We’ve had a lot of fantastic comments — and some wonderful exchanges and ideas.

It’s very difficult to single out one comment, but I thought I’d pull out a portion of a comment from Danny Lucas about corporate boards in lieu of the sale of Anheuser-Busch. As usual, Danny expresses some provocative opinions.

Here’s some of what he had to say:

The boards in the United States of America are opting to split up companies for the sum of their parts. This is systematically wiping out jobs and lowering our lifestyle and making Middle Class obsolete.

No one was complaining about $44 a share for BUD.

Folks were making money; life was good.

The same was true for Hammermill as it consistently made a profit over decades and more.

I take issue with the board responsibility to do what is in the best interest of the shareholders. This is like courts doing what is in the best interest of the children, while systematically cutting father’s out of their lives, except every other weekend…..48 days out of 365, for up to 18 years.

Both the Boards and the Courts feel they are doing their job.

They are in reality destroying companies and children, respectively.

Let’s pretend that Wall Street did not exist for a minute.

No shareholders. Given that, both BUD and Hammermill would be operating and making money as usual in their communities.

Homes that were sold due to job loss would be occupied.

Stores that closed would be selling food and consumer goods (yielding further jobs at producing those items anew).

Schools would have more money in their budgets; education thriving.

Divorce courts would not be jammed as much as they are (financial dilemma’s are often a breaking point to an otherwise stable family).

Firemen and cops would be needed and employed by communities to take care of the growing group.

All of this and more would be possible in Erie, PA and in St. Louis (soon to be obliterated like us) , if only, Wall Street did not exist.
Why?

There would be NO shareholders for a board to do stuff in their best interest. Imagine That!

Picker-blogger Dale Hannah went to Erie County Executive Mark DiVecchio’s town hall meeting in North East last night and offers a report on What If?

Hannah is also looking to post some more in-depth reports on the blog in the coming days.

I don’t know which is worse news, that GE Transportation CEO John Dineen has (predictably) been shipped off to his next position, or that his successor is actually younger than I am.

General Electric Co. announced that Dineen is leaving its Erie-based transportation unit to become the president and CEO of GE Healthcare in London.

He will be replaced in the top job by 35-year-old Lorenzo Simonelli.

The news is hardly a surprise, since GE execs cycle through Erie fairly quickly. It’s unusual for CEOs to stick here form more than two years before they are moved on to another position. It’s part of the company’s culture.

Dineen was, by all accounts, an accessible and forward-thinking leader.

I interviewed him several times and found him to have a great touch with people, an understanding of GE’s place in the Erie community, and a vision for growing the business.

Based on the company’s strong performance, he did a fine job during his time in Erie.

Let’s hope Simonelli continues the success.

Jim Russell’s CleveBurgh Diaspora has an interesting critique of the leaders of so-called Rust Belt cities.

It seems the critical comments (which he attributes to colleague Richard Herman) frequently thrown at Erie’s political leadership extend into neighboring cities, as well.

Two excerpts worth noting here.

The first:

In defeat, and afraid to compete globally (immigrant talent—bad, free trade —- bad, foreign direct investment — bad), the rustbelt is largely devoid of any global engagement strategies for growth (there is opportunity in them thar hills over yonder).

The second:

It’s not likely much of our leadership reads at all, travels outside their time zone, glanced at how the rest of the world deals with change, etc……

We have the tools to win. We just do not have the will.

Harsh words. Are they true?

There’s a lot of poetic waxing going on these days about the sale of Anheuser-Busch to the Belgian company InBev.

One of the classic American brands is now in the hands of a foreign company.

They are not all gone, of course. You can still drink a Coke, hop on your Harley, or flick your Zippo lighter.

For as long as I’ve been aware, Budweiser was THE American beer. Sure, there were many better brews out there. But Budweiser was the king.

Now, it’s just another brand that has been taken from its roots.

Clearly, this is a major loss for St. Louis, which has long been associated with the company.

When you think St. Louis, you think the Gateway Arch, the Cardinals, and Budweiser.

In a way, losing Bud to the Belgians is like seeing Albert Pujols taking a better offer from a team in Brussels.

I know that folks in Erie can relate. After all, the city has seen more than its share of similar losses.

The closest it comes, in my mind, is the loss of Hammermill Paper.

Many people felt betrayed when Hammermill was sold to International Paper back in the 1980s. The betrayal was cemented when IP pulled the paper-making operation from the Lake Erie shore in 2002.

It seems unlikely that Budweiser will ever be yanked from St. Louis.

Then again, it seemed impossible to imagine anyone other than the Busch family owning the quintessential American beer brand.

I was reminded of Dale Hannah’s recent post political plea bargains on What If? over the weekend when I read some of the stories about the state employees who are facing charges that they were part of a scheme to give improper bonuses to employees of the Pennsylvania Legislature.

I’ve written before about how public officials should be held to a higher standard when it comes to following the law and not abusing their power.

Hannah’s post had a similar tone in questioning the recent case involving former state Rep. Linda Bebko-Jones of Erie. I invite you to check it out — and to read the comments, as well.

One of Hannah’s readers, Ron, had what I think is a great idea for making public officials more accountable. He proposes jacking up the penalties for public officials who abuse their power:

For instance, if you use your power as a Congressman/woman to commit an offense, you should receive at least 1.5x the jail time/fine that you would have received for the same crime that a normal citizen would have received. Those who make our laws have the utmost responsibility to abide by them, and to abuse your power and break the trust of the people is a crime itself. I think if you want to seek public office, you need to remember that you work for the people, not for your own gains.

Would this work? Should public officials be held to a different standard? As always, I welcome your thoughts.

Dale Hannah reports on the opening night of the Rust Belt Bloggers Summit on What If?

An excerpt:

Some of the initial discussion focused on technique, gaining credibility, changing the “underdog” attitude that seems to permeate the minds of residents of the Rust Belt cities and towns. The power of the blogging world to reach those in positions of power was also discussed.

Boy, it’s been a good week for Waldameer and its new roller coaster, the Ravine Flyer 2.

I mentioned earlier how the new coaster was rated the fourth-best ride in the world by CoasterFanatics.com.

Today, the coaster is getting big play in the New York Times in a story about old-fashioned roller coasters.

It includes a great video about the coaster.

This week’s top comment comes from Mike, who opines about what he thinks is the difficult to break network for leadership positions in Erie.

There is a grain of truth to what Mike says, though the more I think about it, such networks exist in pretty much every community.

That said, there seems to be a recycling of folks in parts of the Erie leadership structure — at the expense of other smart people who could make a difference.

Here’s his comment:

It’s unfortunately true about the networks in Erie. They seem to run deep in this town, and you don’t always have that in other cities. That doesn’t mean that Becca Martin isn’t a good worker, but it helps to be “in” with the right people in Erie. Looking at the people on boards in Erie that have been listed on this site and the repeat names that show up helps illustrate that.

That irritates a lot of young people in Erie. Could a recent graduate from one of the local colleges with a degree in finance or economics, or an MBA graduate do just as good a job as Becca Martin, or even better? Maybe, maybe not, but we’ll never know because they are never given the chance to prove themselves (at least not in Erie), where there are some that are given opportunity after opportunity.

I’m not trying to bash Martin here, but Erie is definitely a city that could use some new blood in government/economic development positions.

Jim Martin at the Erie Times-News has an interesting story this morning about Becca Martin’s decision to leave her economic development job in Michigan and return to Erie.

Becca Martin, you might remember, left her job at the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership last summer to take a position as the head of the chamber of commerce in Ludington, Mich.

But homesickness is bringing her back, according to the ETN piece.

And she has her eye on two openings in Erie that are not identified in the piece.

One prominent opening in Erie’s economic development system is the soon-to-be-vacated position of chief executive officer of the Economic Development Corp. of Erie County.

Monica Brower, the current CEO of the organization, is leaving to take a position with Alcoa in Pittsburgh.

There’s no indication that Martin is in line for that job, but it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that she would consider putting her hat in the ring, given her experience with the Chamber and the Erie-Western Pennsylvania Port Authority.

Martin’s decision brings back memories of a similar situation involving Ralph Pontillo a few years ago.

Pontillo, the longtime president of the Manufacturer & Business Association, left the organization briefly in 2004 to take a job as the head of a prominent trade group in Houston.

But after just a few months down in Texas, Pontillo decided that he belonged in Erie and came back.

Unlike Martin, however, Pontillo was able to return to his former job.