SRP funding consultant to update Queen Creek’s economic development program of work

Yes, as a community service SRP is paying for Boyette’s time to work with us on the update to the strategic plan.”

Doreen Cott, the town’s economic development director

Discovery session questions

Questions posed to Economic Development Commission members in a discovery session by Boyette Strategic Advisors officials included:

• What is your top priority or outcome for this economic development plan?

• Through the lens of your residents and businesses, what do you think they want to see addressed?

• What are Queen Creek’s competitive advantages for economic development?

• What are the greatest challenges facing Queen Creek’s economic development efforts today?

• What are the top economic development opportunities for Queen Creek?

• What are your thoughts on targeted business/industry sectors for Queen Creek?

• Do you think the Town of Queen Creek should have a bigger focus on entrepreneurship/innovation?

• What do you think is the best use for the state-owned land?

• What would you like to see happen in the Town Center?

• What would you like to see happen in Queen Creek from a tourism perspective?

• With unlimited resources, what would you do as it relates to economic development in Queen Creek?

• What one news headline would you like to read about Queen Creek in three years?

Source: Town of Queen Creek

4 phases of work

Boyette Strategic Advisors is doing the work in four phases:

• Project launch: Includes preliminary demographic and economic research; and a virtual project launch workshop with review to confirm project components, finalize timeline, communications framework, benchmark research focuses, plan for stakeholder engagement, information request and core team discovery session.

• Complete stakeholder engagement: Includes having the economic development commission discovery session, interviews with Town Council members and with other partners; data review and analysis, including previous plans and reports, demographic/economic data, business base analysis and property review; benchmark research; and existing target sector assessment.

• Program of work: Update Zoom meeting; develop strategic goals and recommendations, including entrepreneurship/innovation, product development, tourism, and downtown development.

• Project delivery: Draft deliverable meeting, action plan development and a presentation.

Source: Town of Queen Creek, Boyette Strategic Advisors

By Richard Dyer
Twitter: @RHDyer

Queen Creek officials from council to staff members and volunteers on the town’s Economic Development Commission have been interviewed recently by a consultant hired by Salt River Project. The Arkansas- and Georgia-based business is to prepare an economic development program of work for the municipality focused on increasing competitiveness over the next three years.

“Yes, as a community service SRP is paying for Boyette’s time to work with us on the update to the strategic plan,” Doreen Cott, the town’s economic development director, said of Boyette Strategic Advisors.

An SRP spokesperson confirmed that the utility provides various degrees of support for strategic planning/economic development to several municipalities.

“Our success in economic development is measured by the success of our communities in achieving their own economic-development goals and the overall prosperity of Arizona,” SRP spokesman Scott Harrelson said. “SRP offers a number of community development programs, one of which is providing resources to assist in strategic planning efforts. The support offered by this program is provided based on a community’s request for it. SRP is pleased to support Queen Creek through this program in their strategic planning efforts and the creation of an economic development program of work.”

The SRP economic development strategic planning assistance program is fairly new and Queen Creek is the first municipality to take advantage of it, he said.

“Other communities may receive similar support in the future based on funding availability and community interest in it,” Mr. Harrelson said.

SRP cannot disclose how much the study for Queen Creek will cost, he said.

“SRP previously engaged with Boyette on our own economic development strategic plan. For commercially sensitive reasons, we cannot disclose the details of our agreement. Our continued partnership, however, allows us to take advantage of economies of scale since Boyette has done previous work within the area and has specific knowledge of our service territory and communities. It should be noted that this strategic planning process is currently being undertaken virtually due to COVID-19 travel and safety concerns,” Mr. Harrelson said.

Economic Development Commission

Del Boyette, president and CEO; and Tracy Sharp, chief operating officer, both of Boyette Strategic Advisors, held a discovery session as part of the Economic Development Commission’s Sept. 23 meeting on audio and WebEx. It was the first item on the agenda and took nearly 1.5 hours.

The commission, which meets as needed at 7:30 a.m. on the fourth Wednesday of the month, assists staff on updating and revising the Queen Creek Strategic Plan for Economic Development. Commission members are appointed by the Town Council to help define an updated vision for the town and develop a series of new strategies and action items, according to the town’s website.

Planning and a project launch workshop were held in late August by Boyette Strategic Advisors; data assessment, research and target review are in September and October; the program of work development is slated for November and December/January; and the project delivery and action plan are to be in December/January, according to a presentation to the commission.

Boyette Strategic Advisors has a team of associates and leaders that uncover key community assets, accentuate corporate positions, ask questions, strive for measurable actions and provide advice or intel. It has offices in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Atlanta, Georgia, according to its website at https://www.boyette-sa.com.

Verbatim notes of what was said at the commission meeting were to be taken, Mr. Boyette said.

“I hope that we get some good feedback from you-all and I am sure we will. There are a couple of council members who we have already talked with individually yesterday,” he said.

“We’re working, as you know, to develop an economic development program of work focusing on Queen Creek’s competitiveness for the next three years,” Mr. Boyette said.

Ms. Sharp explained to committee members the steps the business is taking to complete the program of work.

“We already launched the project with the project team, which is your Queen Creek economic development team. And so we have already started some of our data assessment, which is the second component and a big component of that is the stakeholder-engagement part, which obviously we’re doing today. We started a little bit of that yesterday, as Del mentioned, interviewing the council members,” she said.

“So, in addition to the commission discovery session, we’re interviewing all of the Town Council members as well as other partners. We’ll be talking to SRP as well --- which I believe they’re on the phone today --- but we’ll be talking to them... We’ll also be talking to some other partners, the key staff at the city levels,” Ms. Sharp said.

A presentation on the findings will likely be made to the Economic Development Commission in January, she said.

Economic development program

The town’s current economic development program of work was adopted in 2015.

A variety of questions were asked Sept. 23 of commission members, starting with “What is your top priority or outcome for this economic development plan?”

A lot has changed since the last plan was completed, from annexations to plans for the extension of State Route 24, Economic Development Director Cott said to commissioners.

“So we’ve gone through these questions as staff with Del and Tracy, but really just looking at the current plan and those key initiatives in our targeted sectors and making sure they’re still relevant. We’ve accomplished a lot since the last plan was adopted, so really want to look at recalibration, our objectives based on our accomplishments,” she said.

“And then we’ve had some major changes in the community with the annexation of the state land and Encanterra and Ironwood Crossing and the State Route 24 will be finishing up here in the next couple of years. So there’s a lot of things that have changed and will be changing over the next three years. So really making sure we have a good action plan ... to make us as competitive as we can be with our neighbors of Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler, to be a player in the region,” Ms. Cott said.

Commission Vice Chair Grant Tayrien said creating jobs are a priority.

“Shouldn’t the top priority be the creation of jobs? I know that we have a lot of jobs related to the service industry, but how about ... core jobs that would result in more service and more opportunities? I think the 24 freeway extending gives us that corridor that gives us an opportunity for job growth,” he said. “Right now we’re perceived as kind a ‘bedroom community’ where we commute to other towns. I think a core job is either white- or blue-collar jobs that create opportunities for the service industry.”

The creation of a balance of jobs is best for students coming out of educational institutions, Dr. Perry Berry, Queen Creek Unified School District superintendent and a member of the commission, said.

“Fundamentally our purpose is to prepare students for the lives and jobs and careers they lead outside of school and we’re very interested in the balance, the types of career clusters that are available in Queen Creek, and so that we can establish partnerships and mentorships, internships with Queen Creek business and industry partners,” he said.

“So, I don’t know if I’m being very specific, but I think our top priority is to create ... core jobs — high-quality jobs — that have benefits or true careers that represent a broad variety so that our students and families have those career opportunities as soon as they get out of their K-12 experience here,” Dr. Berry said.

Salt River Project

SRP is a community-based, not-for-profit public power utility and provider of electricity in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, serving more than one million customers. SRP is a raw water supplier in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, delivering about 800,000 acre-feet of water annually to agricultural, urban and municipal water users.

SRP’s economic development division has a section of its budget that focuses on community development efforts. It has been working with the city of Page to support its economic-development efforts to mitigate the impacts of the closure of Navajo Generating Station in 2019, SRP spokesman Harrelson said.

“Part of these efforts included assistance with the funding of a housing study to determine the type and quantity of housing necessary to meet the anticipated needs of the workforce in Page,” he said.

“Boyette Strategic Advisors is engaged by us to facilitate programs that benefit multiple municipalities including our Mock Prospect Visit Program and Site Readiness Program,” Mr. Harrelson said.

The Mock Prospect Visit Program takes a community through a visit from a hypothetical company evaluating them for a potential site relocation in order to strengthen their response to future leads. Several cities participated before the program was put on pause due to COVID-19 concerns, he said.

Richard Dyer
Managing Editor | East Valley
@RHDyer

rdyer@iniusa.org

Meet Richard
Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia Inc. USA since 1987, starting his career in Apache Junction as a copy editor and being promoted over the years to work as the editor of the Mesa Independent, news services editor for the East Valley office in Apache Junction, managing editor for the East Valley office, news services editor for the East Valley office and eventually also for the newspapers at INI’s then-Chandler office, managing editor again and as a news editor covering Apache Junction/Gold Canyon and Queen Creek. He helped start the Florence Independent while the news editor covering Apache Junction and Mesa news. In January 2023, he became associate managing editor for the East Valley newspapers and in August 2023 became managing editor for the East Valley newspapers of Chandler/Tempe, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Florence, Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon, while also reporting on Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon.  

Community: Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions. 

Education: University of Arizona with a master of arts in journalism and a bachelor of science in agricultural communication. Also continuing education at Mesa Community College in welding in a metal art sculpture class.

Random fact: Saw his first tornado on May 31, 2010, which was classified as an EF-2, as part of a stormchasing tour group.

Hobbies: He is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows.