Well, folks, it’s that time again…

The new 2010 Demographic Profile has been completed and is ready for release to the public. Did you know that Bloomington-Normal’s total annual economic production is greater than the entire countries of Mongolia, Chad, Nicaragua and Zimbabwe? You do now!

This year’s Demographic Profile contains updates of all of last year’s tables, with a few new additions to boot. The look and functionality of the profile has remained virtually unchanged from previous years.

A high-resolution digital version of the Demographic Profile is available on the EDC’s Web site for unlimited download. We encourage all users of this resource to use the digital version, but we also have a small number (2,000) of printed copies available at our office. This means that organizations will be limited to only a handful of printed copies each. If your institution requires a large number of printed profiles, please contact the EDC, and we can work out a separate printing arrangement.

We hope you enjoy this year’s snapshot look at the metrics concerning population, labor, taxes, housing, income, quality of life, retail data and transportation. If you have any questions or suggestions for improvement, please contact Ken Springer, project and data analyst, at (309) 452-8437 or ken@bnbiz.org.

If you are unaware of the Economic Development Council of the Bloomington-Normal Area’s One Voice program, you may be missing out on a very important opportunity. One Voice is our government advocacy program in which we support local projects in their quests for federal funding. Each year, the One Voice task force (comprised of local government, business, education, labor and other community leaders) convenes several meetings where local municipalities/educational institutions/other community organizations present projects for which they are requesting federal appropriations. The One Voice task force chooses 4-6 projects to officially support for the year. Each March, the EDC and a group of 30+ community leaders travel together to Washington, D.C. in order to present these projects to our elected officials and advocate for their financial support.

One Voice, now entering its 5^th year, has become well-known by our congressional delegation and is often referred to as a “best practice” for seeking federal appropriations. To date, we have helped local entities secure over $2.5 million in federal funding (over $24.5 million with the recent TIGER grant allocated to the Town of Normal for the Multi-Modal Transportation Center).

Due to the rising popularity of this program, we are changing the way we manage the One Voice project submittal process. For the 2011 One Voice program and beyond, all applicant projects will need to go through a screening and development process in conjunction with the EDC. EDC staff will now be working with each entity submitting a project to develop a rigorous and objective “argument” for every project. This argument will include a full analysis of the project’s potential economic development impacts, its risks, feasibility and financial picture. The outcome will be a comparative report for each proposed project for the One Voice Task Force’s review. The EDC believes our new process will ultimately provide our elected officials with better-vetted projects with stronger arguments and objective metrics.

Because this process will be much more involved than in prior years, the deadline for project submission has been moved forward. The EDC highly recommends that all entities seeking to submit a project for the 2011 year attend an informational session to be held on Wednesday, April 14^th, 2010 from 8:30-10:30 a.m. in the Heartland Bank & Trust (formerly Bank of Illinois) Community Room (200 W. College Ave., Uptown Normal – Parking is available in the deck next to the building.) This session will detail the steps required by the new process and will give potential applicants a chance to ask questions of EDC staff. All potential One Voice projects must be submitted to the EDC by August 1, 2010 in order to be considered for the 2011 Washington, D.C. trip – NO EXCEPTIONS.

Please RSVP for the informational session to Brooke Weishaupt at brooke@bnbiz.org or 309-452-8437 by Monday, April 12^th.

Folks, it is time to do your duty.  By now, you should have received in your mailbox a piece of paper with the utmost importance for McLean County.  That piece of paper is the 2010 Census Form.  Fill it out!!!

Ignore the nutjob conspiracy theorists who claim that the 2010 Census is actually a tool of socialist/communist/Klingon indoctrination.  A properly filled-out census form has a real financial impact on our local schools, governments and social service organizations.  Here are some examples of how:

1) Census population counts are the statistics most often used by businesses looking to locate new facilities.  Do you want IKEA to build a store in Bloomington-Normal?  They won’t ever consider the notion until our population and income levels match their benchmark criteria.   This works the same for non-retail businesses, too.  Since workforce availability is a key factor for manufacturing operations, a higher population count might put Bloomington-Normal on more company’s radars as a possible location for a new plant.  New businesses mean more dollars in our local economy.

2) Communities with populations higher than 100,000 often receive their own allocation of HUD funding and other types of government grants.  While Normal and Bloomington are both well-below the necessary population totals, think forward to the day when Bloomington will have 99,999 residents.  The difference between a filled-out census form and a blank one could cost the city millions.

3) School funding is also allocated by population.  If your census form gets ignored, you may end up having to pay more for our local schools in the form of higher property taxes.  And no one really wants THAT to happen, right?

4) Census population counts are used to determine voting representation at the federal level.  Under-reported populations will find themselves with less of a voice on federal issues.

5) If I have failed to convince you of the economic and political importance to the community of filling out the census form, please consider the personal economic ramifications – refusing to answer it can cost you up to $5,000 in fines and legal troubles to boot.

It is time to do your duty to our community and country.  Please fill out the census when asked and encourage those around you to do the same.

*For more information about the 2010 Census, visit: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/.

Many people ask me how we can go to Washington, DC and ask the feds for money in a time when the federal deficit is higher than it’s ever been, and many say that earmarks are pork and wasteful. I understand what they are thinking and how they feel. I, too, have always had some trepidation in taking this trip each year. But, when I fully think about it, it becomes clear, and I am once again excited about moving forward with this effort. You see, One Voice isn’t about wasteful spending; it isn’t about pork. It is about many other things. This is why I still believe in One Voice:

1. It is our first amendment right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.” In the context of the Constitution and One Voice, what does this mean? I think it means that as citizens we have every right to go to Washington, DC and ask our elected leaders for the things we believe are important. This ranges from the implementation of programs designed to defend our borders and punish those who might hurt our citizens, to healthcare, to immigration, to small business and to unfair taxes. It also means that we have the right, and I would even argue, duty, to ask for some of the dollars we send to the federal government back. We want to bring these dollars back to our own community to spend on projects that make us a quality place; the place where business and families can prosper. Therefore, our grievance is “We want some of our money back.”

2. Our request for funding for an appropriation is not for dollars that are “above the budget.” All we ask is that our community be given the opportunity to show how these projects will be beneficial to us. Should a career bureaucrat decide when and how our community is going to benefit due to some program that has arcane rules and national goals that don’t even come close to our needs? I say no. We send our congressional delegation to Washington, DC to do our good work and represent us. The best thing they can do from time to time is make sure that we have an opportunity to share in our national wealth.

3. Our requests are well-thought  and can withstand the  front page of any newspaper or media scrutiny. We have no “bridge to nowhere” (which, by the way, if you looked at it, was actually a decent project - its problem was the fast-moving media frenzy that occurred after someone had the audacity to criticize it which made it become the poster child for waste and pork), we have good projects and we have good outcomes. Our requests make it easy for our congressional delegation to support.

These are three strong reasons why asking our congressman or congresswomen for funding for good projects is right, fair and our duty. I love coming to Washington, DC and spending time on Capitol Hill trying to convince my elected leaders to find a way to fund our projects. There are so many groups, delegations and people milling about, waiting to meet with their elected officials to tell them their needs. Autism research, green energy alternatives, composting, small business outreach programs and a whole host of other ideas are brought to their attention every day. This is what makes us America. I can’t imagine any other place on earth where we get to do this.