Economic booms don’t just happen

By Buzz Eggleston | Posted: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 8:45 am

Larry Cope is an optimist, but his views on how to improve Calaveras County’s economy aren’t real comforting.

“The thing that Calaveras runs into is that now you have two  established retail shopping regions on either side of you,” he said.

Those retail hubs in Sonora and in Amador County, along with major  stores, auto dealers, and other businesses in the valley, bleed money  from Calaveras County. They enrich our neighbors, but hurt public  services, private businesses, and residents who live here: Less money  from retail sales taxes, less money in circulation, fewer jobs, lower  incomes, fewer services, higher taxes.

Cope, 40, is the director  of Tuolumne County’s Economic Development Authority. Experienced in  building businesses, he arrived in Sonora on April 6, 2009, just after  Mervyn’s and Gottschalks department stores declared they planned to  close their doors and Sierra Pacific Industries said it would do  likewise with its large Standard lumber mill.

“The minute Mervyn’s and Gottschalks closed, even though we have some other great retailers, like TJ Maxx, Ross, and everything else like that, it drove more people down to the valley to shop,” Cope said. And as for SPI, it was not only about lumber mill jobs and their family-size wages, it was about  community pride. Logging and millwork “ha d been a way of life in  Tuolumne County for generations.”

The business community was  staggered, much as Amador County would soon be with the announcement  that all of its major new car dealerships were closing. Unlike Amador,  however, Tuolumne County was better prepared.

Within a year,  Gottschalks was replaced by Kohl’s, another major department store. SPI  announced it would retool the mill and reopen it, bringing back 130  jobs. What Cope describes as a national retail tenant “or tenants” will  soon be moving into the vacant Mervyn’s store. Other good things are  happening, too.

Lowe’s, the national hardware store chain, opened  on Sonora’s outskirts, as did another country store, Tractor Supply.  More importantly, perhaps, Sandvik, a manufacturer of machinery used by  high-tech companies, declared in February 2010 it would increase its  102-person Standard workforce by another 150 workers within three years. By December it had already added 76 of those jobs.

Tuolumne  County’s achievements are rooted in a 2008 pact between county  government and Sonora city officials to invest in a partnership that  resulted in the formation of the Economic Development Authority. It  succeeded earlier, unsuccessful efforts, some of which were too  dependent on private funding.

Public offic ials knew they had “to do something,” Cope said.

“The only way to get additional revenues in, to hopefully pay to get more  police officers back in or get more firefighters back in, to get more  roadways repaired, the only way you do that, is you have to create more  income into the county,” he explained.

“If you don’t,” he  continued with discrete candor, “you can be five years down the road and the state can still be stealing your funds and now you haven’t created  anything to dig yourself out of the hole.”

Cope said retailers  focus on population density, and that while some Calaveras County  communities are big enough to attract the likes of Starbucks, they are  unlikely to appeal to large stores.

“We pull people from western  Stanislaus County; we pull people from Calaveras County; we pull also a  fair number of tourists,” he said. The retailers, especially the bigger  ones, know that Calaveras residents will drive either to their stores in Sonora or in Jackson, so they won’t build another store between the  two.

Tuolumne County also has a good handle on visitors,  recognizing that if they can divert just 5 percent of the shopping  potential of 4.5 million people annually heading to the Stanislaus  National Forest or Yosemite National Park, they can attract big  retailers. Plus, the tourists now know they don’t need to stop in  Manteca or Modesto for their camping supplies on their way up the hill.

All this said, Cope offered some hope for Calaveras County.

“You do have an advantage,” he said. “I believe you guys have some natural  gas supplies in your county. That would be one definite thing you could  be looking at marketing because that is very rare in the Mother Lode.”

He’s talking about an 8-inch natural gas line brought by Pacific Gas &  Electric Co. from Rio Vista to San Andreas in 1940 to supply the now  closed Calaveras Cement plant’s kilns. The line was extended to serve  most of the town of San Andreas, giving its residents to this day a less costly alternative to propane and electricity.

The gas line’s  potential to serve an industrial or manufacturing plant remains  unrealized since the demise of cement operations in 1983.

So how do you market something like access to natural gas?

“Everyone needs to partner,” Cope said. “Everyone needs to get on the same plate. Whether or not it locates in San Andreas or Angels Camp or wherever,  it’s going to benefit the entire community, so let’s work together.  That’s really the first step they did here, even before I got here. The  city and the county got together.”