The Governor’s Conference on Retirement and Aging was held this week. Having recently tottered by that birthday milestone certain people find it terribly clever to call the Big Five-O, I followed this two-day event with a mixture of professional and personal interest.

The purpose of the conference was, it seems, to serve as a reminder that it has been five years since the current administration declared attracting retirees to Maine a key element of the state’s economic development strategy. The fruits of this endeavor so far are a declaration, two studies and a conference – all in all, not a bad start. For the current administration.

Of course, it’s not so much a strategy willingly undertaken as it is a defensive reaction. Maine, as the stagnant Census 2000 numbers show, doesn’t do a particularly good job of attracting new working-age residents and it does a particularly bad job of keeping the young people who grow up here, here. (Case in point – the first runner-up in the Miss America Pageant of two weeks ago, the young woman who will reign should the winner turn out to be a person named Floyd with a long history of cosmetic surgery, was born, raised and educated in Maine, but competed as Miss Massachusetts. This suggests that Maine doesn’t just have a Brain Drain, but a Congeniality Gap as well.)

The guiding document behind this initiative toward a better future for Maine is called Golden Opportunity II. It was produced in 1999 as an update to Golden Opportunity I of 1997, which was the result of Gov. King’s Economic Development Strategy of 1996. It is one of many such documents enjoying peaceful retirement in the archives of the State Planning Office.

So the other day I polished up the old bifocals to read through Golden Opp II, and was struck by what a remarkable piece of work it is. Search through every document produced by any level of government in the history of this glorious republic and you will not find one so utterly full of … exclamation marks. It fairly shouts at you. People get older! Then they retire! Some might move to Maine! Declarations of war are demure by comparison.

According to Golden Opp II, the reason Maine should pursue attracting retirees from away is this – they bring money, a lot more of it than people get by working here. No economic development plan worthy of the name can forego mention of the multiplier effect, a mystical phenomenon economists believe in devoutly yet cannot explain, and this one’s a doozy. Golden Opp II and administration types at the conference cited a study (unnamed, but you gotta believe) which found that one retiree household moving to Maine has the economic clout of 3.7 factory jobs.

Sorry, make that 3.7 factory jobs! Imagine – you and the spouse work your heinies off for years, scraping by, paying bills and putting your children through college. Then, on the very day they hand you the gold watch and cut the farewell sheet cake, you transform into a mini-GM. Makes you wonder what they put in that cake. Anyway, let’s all retire today and really get this economy moving.

Also, we’re told, attracting retirees is good because old folks don’t clutter up the schools with kids! Never mind that in large parts of this state the problem is the lack of kids and empty schools. Not that you’d expect the State Planning Office to be aware of such things. And, affluent old folks – the type we’re going after – are generally in better health and can pay their own way when they do get sick!

As for how we get all these rich retirees to move to Maine, Golden Opp II is loaded with good ideas. Establish centers for elder learning all over the state! Make elder-friendly attractions a feature of the state’s tourism efforts! Foster changes in health care to encourage first-rate geriatric services! Above all, Maine should take a leadership role in the retirement industry by creating a Maine Retirement Resource Center!

So I called the Maine Retirement Resource Center to see how things were going. No I didn’t – it doesn’t exist. And how are things going at your local elder learning center? The only elder-specific thing I found on the state tourism Web site was a cribbage meet at a mountain resort – that’ll start a retiree stampede for sure. And Maine’s health care system, in particular its meager geriatric services, got shredded by medical panelists at the conference.

Actually, Golden Opp II and the conference served to make the real goal of this initiative clear – Maine doesn’t want incoming retirees per se. What it wants is people who are in good health and who have enough money so they don’t need jobs. When Golden Opp III comes out expect a recommendation that the state set up checkpoints for physical and fiscal fitness at the New Hampshire border. While Revenue Services goes over the financial statements, prospective immigrants run timed sprints across the Piscataqua Bridge. Give us your fit, your rich …

But, like I said, my interest in this somewhat personal. When 2016 rolls around and I hit the Big Six-Five, and I get my gold watch and my slice of magic sheet cake, I wonder what Golden Opp VIII will say? Will it report that Maine government finally realized that declarations, studies and conferences are just square one and that real progress, moving to square two and beyond, requires commitment and investment, not schemes and happy talk? I hope so. Sorry, make that I hope so!

Bruce Kyle is the assistant editorial page editor for the Bangor Daily News.