Measured growth key to future economy, firms told

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ROCKPORT – Economic policy planner Alan Caron said Wednesday at a business showcase that Maine has to grow its economy “without wrecking the place.”

Caron, president, chief executive officer and founder of GrowSmart Maine, said the state is in the midst of a “great moment of challenges and opportunities.”

“It is vitally important that we understand these challenges and opportunities as best we can,” Caron said to 50 business and professional people attending a business showcase held at the Samoset Resort.

“The question for us is, can we adapt and change, and can we do it quickly enough?” he asked rhetorically.

Presented jointly by the Camden, Rockport and Lincolnville Chamber of Commerce and the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce, the showcase featured Caron and Maine Senate President Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport, as the speakers on the theme of “Connecting with Government.”

The showcase included a tradeshow, sponsored by Bangor International Airport and Staples, of more than 100 businesses from the midcoast displaying their products and services.

GrowSmart Maine is a statewide nonprofit citizens’ group dedicated to promoting sustainable prosperity and quality places, according to its literature. Last year on Oct. 5 the organization released “Charting Maine’s Future: An Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Places,” a new report done for GrowSmart Maine by the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program.

The report deals with the relationship between future economic prosperity, the character and quality of Maine’s communities and environment, the cost and design of Maine government and sprawl, or the dispersal of Maine’s population into the rural countryside.

The study includes a series of recommendations and a blueprint for action, focusing on the need for community revitalization, a quality places fund, land and farm conservation, access to forests and lakes, and tourism promotion.

“If you understand nothing else about the Brookings Report, I hope you understand that we’re in a new era of sustainable prosperity, but it isn’t guaranteed,” he said. “We’ve got some tough choices to make and some tough changes to go through.”

He said the state had to find a better way to use its limited resources.

“We’re a small state with limited resources, and we’ve got to find a way to work together,” he stressed.

“Wherever you go in Maine, people say, ‘We want prosperity, but we don’t want to wreck the place,'” he said.

He believes that everyone lives in the state “on purpose,” either by birth or by choice, because people believe Maine is a special place.

He called the Brookings Report the first economic report that tied together a love of place with a need for prosperity.

“That’s the essential idea of why it has resonated so strongly,” he said of the report.

It’s not true that Maine is against growth, said Caron, a native of Waterville. “We’re ambivalent about growth. We want growth that doesn’t change the place.”

Usual economic prosperity changes the characteristics of countryside, he said. “But that isn’t what we want.”

He said the society is living in a new revolution, one of mobility, that many people are not yet aware exists. He cited the Internet and cell phones as agents of the revolution, because people may work one place and live in another.

“You get to pick where you live,” he said. “Most people will choose a place of character.”

The economy is diversifying, and the new economy is not like the old one. Technology has made it possible for a paper mill to produce as much paper as before with 10 percent of the old work force, he cited by example.

Caron said the state has an attitude problem. “We have a robust doom and gloom industry in Maine,” he said, drawing laughter from his audience.

The one recommendation for taxation in the report is an increase in the lodging tax from 7 percent to 10 percent, a point that drew criticism from audience member Jamey Kitchen, general manager of the Hampton Inn in Thomaston.

Pointing out that Maine’s lodging tax is the lowest in New England, Caron said the tax is going to come and that people should focus on dedicating it to tourism and not the general fund.

A bill being presented by the Maine House next week will call for a $190 million, 10-year revenue bond to improve Maine’s quality places. The bill would be funded by the three-point increase in n the lodging tax.

After Caron’s talk, the group broke up into four rotating workshops on insurance, education, taxation and the creative economy.

Workers compensation rates are climbing back to the their pre-1990s level, when the system was reformed, business owners at the insurance forum said.

One contractor said that employees are beginning to use their workers’ compensation as their only health insurance that places the cost on the employers.

The Camden, Rockport, Lincolnville Chamber of Commerce distributed a proposed position paper calling on workers’ compensation reform, citing a number of bills, including restricting the use of the insurance and tightening the penalties for fraud, amending the laws on assessment of rates, and creating an Insurance Fraud Division within the Bureau of Insurance.

Chamber Executive Director Claire Adams said her board of directors still has to vote on the proposal.

Edmonds said she was optimistic about Maine’s future and cited the need to grow businesses in a small way rather than by seeking large companies.