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This is to certify that the
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Public Agencies, Participation, and Power: A case study of
public participation in economic development

presented by

Lexine T. Hansen

has been accepted towards fulfillment
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Public Agencies, Participation, and Power:
A case study of public participation in economic development

By

Lexine T. Hansen

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTERS OF SCIENCE

2006

ABSTRACT

Public Agencies, Participation, and Power:
A case study of public participation in economic development

By
Lexine T. Hansen
While economic development in the US. is a public process, it is unclear how the
public influences economic development programs. This study uses a case study approach
to examine how ordinary community members may access the decision-making process at a
public economic development agency. Qualitative interviews were used to explore the ways
in which the public may participate in and influence the work of Iron Range Resources
(IRR), a regional agency working to diversify the economy of rural, Northeastern Minnesota.
The results suggest that ideologies of expertise frame economic development
thinking so that expert knowledge is privileged over community knowledge and business
interests outweigh citizen goals. Three main mechanisms for community input are
identified. However, the most commonly cited means, public commentary, offers
community members little real influence. The results also suggest that elites may use
positions of power outside of the IRR to influence the process from within. Finally, the
study finds that community members with influence at the agency are community elites,
usually economic development professionals, government officials, or business leaders who
already enjoy elevated status in the community. The research concludes that underlying
ideologies frame the work of IR so that community knowledge is marginalized and local
people are distanced from the economic development programs in their communities. The
research shows that economic development assumptions privilege elites and must be re-

conceptualized to include non-elites.

Copyright by
LEXINE T. HANSEN
2006

To my father, Terry D. Hansen,

who shared in this research from beginning to end.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research could not have been possible without the support of many people.
Contributions from Iron Range businesses Seppi Brothers Construction and Ryan, Kasner,
Ryan funded the transcripts. My transcribers, especially George Moyer, completed
painstaking and detailed work in a minimum of time. Without their assistance, I would still
be transcribing interviews.

My committee deserves a great deal of credit for this project. Dr. Pete Kakela re—
introduced me to the Iron Range and to IR. His friendship and support were invaluable.
Dr. Pat Norris added understanding about economic development and local governance.
Finally, Dr. Kimberly Chung, my advisor, worked with me step by step throughout the
process, pushing me to create a better thesis than I thought possible. Her intelligence,
diligence, and mentorship have changed my life. I have grown as a scholar and a person as a
result of our collaboration.

My family and friends have been extremely supportive as well. Christine Egger
showed me that it was actually possible to finish a thesis project. Monica Day taught me it
was all right to go at my own pace. My mother, Lynne Hardey, reminded me that the end
product would be worth the struggle. My father, Terry Hansen, housed me during the
research and allowed me to take over his computer and home for the project. He was also a
sounding board for my initial confused thoughts and ramblings about the project.

The people of Iron Range Resources were friendly and helpful, answering my
numerous questions quickly and opening their offices to me with honesty and forthrightness.
They work tirelessly to improve the economies of Iron Range communities and I admire

them greatly.

I am also deeply indebted to Iron Rangers themselves. The people of northern
Minnesota build and maintain quality communities in harsh conditions, both economically
and climatically. They serve as a model for rural communities around the country. They are
my inspiration for this project as well as all the work I do.

I am forever grateful for the support I received from all of these people, and those I

have not been able to mention here.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIST OF TABLES ix
LIST OF FIGURES x
1. INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 THE IRON RANGE RESOURCES CASE STUDY 4
1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 6

2. LITERATURE REVIEW 9
2.1 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 9
2.1.1 Economic Growth 10
2.1.2 Who Are Economic Development Decision-makers? 12
2.1.3 Movement Toward Local Involvement 23

2.2 PUBLIC PARTICIPATION 25
2.2.1 Levels of Influence 25
2.2.2 Purposes and Mechanisms of Participation 26
2.2.3 Issues and Participation Modes 30
2.2.4 Critiques of Public Participation 32

2.3 IDEOLOGY AND POWER IN DECISION MAKING 39
2.3.1 Coercive power 39
2.3.2 Ideologies 41

2.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS FOR THIS STUDY 42

3. METHODS 45
3.1 DATA COLLECTION 45
3.1.1 Document Analysis 46
3.1.2 In-depth Qualitative Interviews 46

3.2 DATA ANALYSIS 52
3.2.2 Development of Codes 52
3.2.3 Displays 53
3.2.4 Analysis for Each Research Question 56
3.2.5 Validity 59

4. IRON RANGE RESOURCES: DESCRIPTION 50
4.1 BRIEF HISTORY OF IRON RANGE RESOURCES 60
4.1.1 Current IRR Goals 65

4.2 IRR’S DECISION STRUCTURE 66
4.2.1 Governor 67
4.2.2 Commissioner 67
4.2.3 Iron Range Resources Board 69
4.2.4 IRR Staff 69
4.2.5 Citizen Advisory Committees 70

4.3 PROJECT PROCESS 72
4.4 CONCLUSION 74

Vii

. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

75

 

5.1 WHAT INPUT MECHANISMS ARE AVAILABLE TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES IN IRON RANGE

RESOURCES, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DECISION PROCESS?
5.1.1 Insider Mechanisms: Locals Participate in IR Bodies
5.1.2 Promotion Mechanisms: Promoting Projects as an IR Outsider
5.1.3 Commentary Mechanisms: Reacting to IR Decisions

5.2 WHO INFLUENCES THE PROCESS?

75

 

78

 

78

 

79

 

81

 

5.2.1 Who is Influential: Expected Influence
5.2.2 Who Is Influential: Extraordinary Influence
5.3 WHAT INFLUENCE DO LOCAL COMMUNITIES HAVE IN IRR DECISIONS?

81

 

86

 

92

 

92

 

5.3.1 Local Influence: Community Elites
5.3.2 Local Influence: Non—elites

94

 

5.4 DISCUSSION: WHY ARE INPUT MECHANISMS AND INFLUENCE STRUCTURED IN THIS

WAY?

 

5.4.1 Participation

 

5.4.2 Coercive Power

 

 

5.4.3 Competing Ideologies

5.5 CONCLUSION: COMPETTNG IDEOLOGIES MARGINALIZE COMMUNITY MEMBERS---

. CONCLUSION

 

6.1 IMPLICATIONS

 

 

6.2 LIMITATIONS
6.3 NEXT STEPS

 

. APPENDICES

 

7.1 DATA COLLECTION MATERIALS

 

 

7.1.1 Interview Consent Form
7.1.2 Public Meeting Participation Consent
7.1.3 Interview Schedules

 

 

 

7.2 DATA ANALYSIS MATERIALS
7.2.1 Coding Table

 

 

7.2.2 Displays

 

7.3 PAC MEDIA RELEASE

 

. REFERENCES

viii

102
102
109
110
119

120
122
125
127

129
129
129
131
133
140
140
143
148

149

LIST OF TABLES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TABLE 2.1: PARTICIPATION TYPOLOGY AS DESCRIBED IN CORNWALL (2003) 27
TABLE 3.1: DATA COLLECTION PROCESS 47
TABLE 3.2: PAC ROLE SUMMARY DISPLAY (ABBREVIATED). ' 55
TABLE 3.3: CONSENSUS DISPLAY: PROJECT PROCESS AND DECISION STRUCTURE ------------ 56
TABLE 7.1: CODE LIST AND DEFINITIONS 140
TABLE 7.2: SUMMARY MATRIX OF INPUT MECHANISMS BY INFORMANT 143
TABLE 7.3: INFLUENCE CONSENSUS TABLE 145
TABLE 7.4: PAC ROLE CONSENSUS TABLE 146

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 4.1: MAP OF TACONITE ASSISTANCE AREA (IRON RANGE RESOURCES, 2005) .......... 60
FIGURE 4.2: HIERARCHY OF IRR DECISION MAKERS .................................................................. 68
FIGURE 4.3: HOW A PROJECT IS PLANNED AT IRR ........................................ 73

FIGURE 5.1: INPUT MECHANISMS FOR LOCAL COMMUNITIES To PARTICIPATE IN THE
PROJECT DECISION PROCESS AT IRR .................................................................................... 77

1. INTRODUCTION

America’s rural communities face many challenges. Shifting economic patterns,
including declining industry, continued urbanization and suburbanization, and agricultural
commercialization have resulted in reduced rural employment oppOrtunities and out
migration to urban centers (Boothroyd & Davis, 1993; Reese, 1997). Rural communities in
the US. and around the globe are engaging in a variety of economic development Strategies
to address these challenges.

Theories of economic development vary across a wide policy spectrum and are often
incompletely understood and implemented in local contexts. Nationally, economic
development is usually described as grOWth, especially growth in jobs (Boothroyd 8.: Davis,
1993; Blair 8: Reese, 1999; Wolrnan & Spitzley, 1999). Often, specific industries or sectors
are targeted based on the resources available in each community, and business recruitment is
the core activity of developers (Beauregard, 1993; Boothroyd & Davis, 1993; Wiewel et al.,
1999)

Economic development can be implemented differently in different places, by
different people. Thus, scholars examine who determines economic development programs.
Reese and Rosenfeld (2002) coined the term local civic culture to describe the decision-
making culture that creates decision processes and empowers decision makers. The local
civic culture affects how development is implemented in a community because it determines
the organizational Structure as well as who is included in making decisions. Different
decision structures grant decision making responsibilities to different people, such as
business leaders, economic developers, politicians, or community leaders. However,
examination of the work of economic development decision-makers suggests that they tend

to focus on business recruitment and specifically, the number of jobs created, rather than

factors which impact quality of life or community well-being more broadly (V ogel &
Swanson, 1993). AS such, residents’ goals, which are often broader than those of economic
developers, are supplanted by a bias toward business needs. Some economic development
scholars have therefore supported more public involvement in economic development
decisions (MacFarlane, 1993; Eisinger, 1999; Clarke, 2001; Making Change Happen, 2001;
Stiglitz, 2002; MacAulay, 2004; Sullivan, 2004; Koster & Randall, 2005). This support for
public involvement follows a similar trend in a variety of fields toward more community
input in public decisions.

Support for increasing public voice in social programs is evident in a variety of fields,
including Political Science, Sociology, Community Development, International
Development, Public Health, Environmental Science, and many others (Bachrach et al.,
1993; Renn at al., 1995a; Kabeer, 1997; Cummings, 2001; Gaventa et al., 2002; Satterfleld 8:
Levin, 2002; Stiglitz, 2002; Cornwall, 2003). Theorists in these fields critique elite-driven
policy—those Situations in which those already elevated socially, such as business leaders,
public officials, and other professionals, are tasked with creating social programs. They have
found that elites may create policies that are not consistent with common people’s goals
(Gaventa et al., 1995; Renn et al., 1995a; Gaventa, 2002). Proponents of greater public
participation have noted that communities can be involved in public decisions in a variety of
ways. These opportunities for public participation, called input mechanisms, vary in mode,
purpose, and influence. Participation, for example, can be used to limit public criticism, but
it can also be transformative in nature and can build citizen capacity and democracy in
communities (Cornwall, 2003). Some continue to argue that experts are better decision

makers than community members (Dewar, 1986; Beaulier, 2004). Others who practice

economic development fear that public involvement may create public opposition—
therefore, community participation may be carefully controlled (Renn et al., 1995a).

Citizen advisory committees (CACS) are a frequently cited means to involve citizens
in public decision-making (Renn et al., 1995a). CACS offer an oppOrtunity for community
members to become highly involved with an agency and to learn about its work and
collaborate with its staff. Recent studies of CACS (Renn et al., 1995a) have detailed their
structure and noted that they can be used for varied purposes, for example to control public
participation or build inclusive dialogue. Thus far, however, there has been little written on
the role that CACS, or other forms of citizen participation, play in the process of economic
development decision—making.

More attention has been placed on the formal decision-makers in these processes.
Reese and Rosenfeld (2002), for example, have focused on the cultural aspects of the
decision structures that are associated with economic development. Specifically, local civic
culture (LCC) is the culture of these decision processes; it is the set of relationships and
decision bodies that compose these processes (Reese 8c Rosenfeld, 2002). The work of
Reese and Rosenfeld (2002) is important as it focuses attention on bow decision processes
and Structures function. Their work, however, does not focus on community members’
involvement in the decision process. AS such, the purpose of this research is to examine
how members of the public are included in public decisions concerning economic
development. Consistent with the concept of civic culture, the research explores the
ideologies that support this local culture. In this thesis, ideology is defined as the system of
beliefs or assumptions that underlie the public decision processes for economic
development. An ideology lays a foundation for a local civic culture to develop, and

therefore will ultimately influence how community members participate, how decisions are

made, and what activities are included in economic development. Since ideologies frame the
decision processes, they must be examined to understand why and how processes include
some and marginalize others.

1.1 THE IRON RANGE RESOURCES CASE STUDY

This project focuses on a case study of Iron Range Resources (IRR), an economic
development agency in northern Minnesota. IRR works in the Taconite Assistance Area
(T AA), also called the Iron Range, a geographical region encompassing the major iron ore
deposits and surrounding communities, spanning 7 counties and including more than 13,000
square miles, or 15% of the state of Minnesota (Iron Range Resources, 2006). The TAA is
somewhat comparable to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. While the UP is slightly larger, at
16,452 sq mi., both regions have abundant lakes, forests, and other natural resources, and are
remote from urban centers.

While the TAA is large, most of its 300,000 inhabitants reside in the small rural
towns near the iron mines. The area’s workforce includes only 123,722 people, 7,755 of
whom are unemployed according to IRR’s web site (2006). Iron Rangers, as residents of the
area call themselves, are educated: 91% have a high school diploma or higher, 50% a
professional certificate or license, and 17% a bachelor’s degree (Iron Range Resources,
2006). The median wage is $14.22/ hour (Minnesota Department of Employment and
Economic Development, 2006) and median household income is $39,566 (N orthland
Connection, 2006). Almost 75% of the homes in the region are owner-occupied, and
average home values range from $43,139 in Ely to $67,764 in Grand Rapids (Iron Range
Resources, 2006).

This region is like many rural U.S. communities whose economies depend on natural

resources. Since the iron ore industry has been contracting since the early 805, there are few

economic opportunities for Iron Rangers and their families (Alanen, 1989). IR exists to
diversify this economy and increase economic opportunity on the Range (Iron Range
Resources, 2004a).

The work of IR is vital to the survival of communities on'the Range. The IR
budget is large relative to the size of the population it serves; in 2004 it was over $21 million.
The state’s Employment and Economic Development department, in contrast, has a budget
of $46 million for similar work in the rest of Minnesota, with a total State population of
nearly 5 million (Stavros, 2006). Similarly, Michigan contributes $32 million to support
projects for the entire State to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (Colisimo,
2006)

IR is funded through iron ore production taxes and receives about 25% of the
$2.103 assessed per ton of ore produced (Minnesota Department of Revenue, 2003). About
15% of the tax is rebated to the mining companies for improvement and the remaining 60%
is distributed to TAA school districts, cities, and counties and for property taxrelief
(Minnesota Department of Revenue, 2003). Since these funds are very important to Iron
Range communities, there is frequent discussion of IR and the production taxes in the local
media.

IR is an ideal case to study how citizens participate in economic development
decisions. First, IR is an important public agency, both in terms of the size of its budget
and the need for development in this rural area. IR is a state agency which is directed by
both the governor, through his appointed commissioner, and an appointed board of
legislators and local citizens. The public nature suggests some accountability and
transparency in practice and means that the process is assumed to be accessible to

researchers and community members.

Second, community involvement appears to be an important theme appearing in
recent empirical studies on the IRR. Both the popular and scholarly literature suggest that
IRR has a history of supporting projects that receive public criticism, including a chopsticks
factory built in the early 19803 and a building demolition program that was only recently
discontinued (Kelleher & Radil, 1999). This perplexing history has generated some scholarly
interest in how IRR supports economic development. Dewar (1986) for example, found
that IRR development efforts were ineffective because the agency did not rely on enough on
rational analysis. Ten years later Roberts (1996) found that the agency was shifting its focus
away from investments in community infrastructure (such as improving water and sewer
systems, and building community parks). However, She noted that Iron Rangers preferred
these community infrastructure projects over other IRR efforts (Roberts, 1996). The shift
away from popular projects suggests that the agency’s changing strategy may contradict the
goals of community members. Thus, the role of community input and influence in the
development of the Range appears to be vital to public confidence in this agency

Third, preliminary research indicated that the IRR offers various opportunities for
community involvement and these can be examined in detail. In keeping with Reese and
Rosenfeld’s (2002) definition, these opportunities are called input mechanism: because they are
the ways in which community members can have input in the IRR’S decision process. By
investigating IRR input mechanisms, the research uncovers how these mechanisms allow or
limit citizen influence.

1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The overall objective of this research is to investigate how citizens participate in

economic development programs through a case study of the IRR. This research includes

three specific research questions:

1) What input mechanisms exist in the IRR decision process? This question
examines the specific opportunities that exist for community members to participate
in the agency’s decision process.

2) Who influences the process? What influence do local communities have in

IRR decisions? These questions address the difference between opportunities for

participation and the influence afforded by an input mechanism. Here, influence is

used to describe how someone may alter or affect the process. The research
explores who is most influential at the agency as well as what influence is wielded by
community members.

3) Why are input and influence structured in this way? This question

investigates the ideologies, the underlying set of beliefs that frames the decision

process and Structure of IR.

The thesis is structured as follows. Chapter 2 introduces the theory behind
economic development which informs the thesis. It explores who implements economic
development and how communities are envisioned in that process. It also examines the
public participation literature which forms the foundation for a growing recognition that
public programming decisions must include the public. It concludes with a brief outline of
the underlying system of concepts, the ideology, which structures economic development
currently and their implications for community power. Chapter 3 details the design of the
Study: the data collection and data analysis procedures. Chapter 4 introduces and describes
the case study. It provides background information on the Iron Range of Minnesota, the
economic development history of the region, and Iron Range Resources’ organizational
hierarchy and decision process. Chapter 5 reports the results of the research. Finally,

Chapter 6 concludes the project with a discussion of its larger implications for public

decision-making. It also includes brief comments on study limitations and future research

opportunities.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Economic development decision~making is a public process like many others. This
chapter reviews how economic development is framed, who makes economic development
decisions and how they are made, and how elitism in the process marginalizes local
communities. It then assesses how public participation is conceptualized in a variety of
fields and how it is addressed in the field of economic development. Finally, it presents how
the influence of communities and elites in public decision-making is conceptualized and
Studied. The chapter concludes that economic development in the US. has been
characterized by technocratic ideologies and elite decision-making processes that preclude
public participation. While economic development scholars have begun to examine the
organizations which implement development policy, little has been written about how local
community members interact with decision makers and the implications of that interaction.
2.1 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES

Economic development is envisioned and practiced differently in different contexts.
Early on, economic development theory was concerned with poor, Third World countries,
and, until the late 19603 and 19703, US. economic development was primarily focused on
poverty reduction programs for inner cities and isolated rural communities (Blair 8c Reese,
1999). The collapse of concentrated industries and manufacturing in the late 19703 and early
19803 caused economic development in the US. to focus on growth, rather than welfare,
community development, or other approaches (Blair & Reese, 1999). Originally
emphasizing industrial growth, the focus of economic development has since expanded to
growth in the service and other seetors. This underlying focus on growth is the prominent
ideology in economic development today (Boothroyd 8t Davis, 1993; Blair & Reese, 1999).

An ideology is the underlying beliefs which comprise a social system, and in economic

development, the underlying belief is that economic growth is the key to healthy
communities (Boothroyd & Davis, 1993).

2.1.1 Economic Growth

With the decline of US. manufacturing in the 19703, US. eConomic development
focused on industrial growth, through the recruitment of major employers and large firms
(Blair & Reese, 1999). “The industrial development to be attracted is typically a faCtory, but
could just as well be a mine, a railway, a tourist attraction, a prison, a college, or a
government agency” (Boothroyd 8t Davis, 1993, 231). Sometimes called smokestack
chasing, this industrial growth approach forced communities to compete for employers and
based policies on “accountants’ ideas of what a good business climate would be: cheap land,
cheap labour [sic], low taxes, few environmental regulations and right-to-work laws”
(Henderson qtd. in Boothroyd 8: Davis, 1993, 231). With this approach, the role of
economic developers was to recruit investment by catering to business owners and
improving the business climate of the town (Boothroyd & Davis, 1993).

The industrial focus of smokestack chasing became problematic. Beauregard (1993)
reviewed a number of concerns. First, while “industrial diversification seems to be
unconditionally adopted and praised,” it can be favored to the detriment of other sectors of
the economy (Beauregard, 1993, 109). Second, growth and stability are not always
compatible: having many businesses that are tied to industrial cycles leaves communities
vulnerable to an economic downturn (Beauregard, 1993). This is ignored by much
industrially focused growth (Beauregard, 1993). Finally, the changing patterns of business in
America are also at odds with an industrial focus. In 1993, “the overwhelming number of
jobs [were] being created in the North American economy by small-business expansions and

start-ups” (Boothroyd 8: Davis, 1993, 231). This trend continues today as 60-80 percent of

10

net new jobs were created by firms of less than 500 employees over the last decade (Small
Business Administration, 2005).

In recognition of these challenges, the industrial growth Strategy evolved into one of
public-led planning for growth. As economic changes were recognized, developers moved
from a focus on industrial recruitment to focusing on recruiting from all business sectors
(with the exception of agriculture) (Blair & Reese, 1999). Now, economic growth is seen as
important even in communities that are well-off “not only to Stimulate new activity but to
assist in the regeneration of jobs” (Blair & Reese, 1999, x). However, the overarching goal is
the same as with industrial recruitment: to increase a locality’s exports (Wiewel et al., 1999).
With this approach,

the emphasis is on comprehensive planning for growth by involving all relevant
private and public actors in setting targets, surveying opportunities, and developing
a wide range of strategies. . .. [Specifically,] firms are assisted in increasing
community exports by expanding markets, developing new products, or making
better use of resources [with] loans and grants, training programs for entrepreneurs
and employees, incubators which provide a pool of office equipment and other
facilities, information on efficiency-producing technological innovations, marketing
junkets, infrastructure improvements, and industrial parks. More indirectly, .
assistance can be given by increasing community attractiveness to shoppers, tourists,
retirees, workers, and investors through measures such as heritage preservations,
installing Street furniture, improving health facilities, reducing pollution, and
developing social services such as day care. (Boothroyd & Davis, 1993, 231-232).

Boothroyd and Davis (1993) highlight the underlying assumptions framing this

growth approach, its ideology:

1) "The community economy is taken to be the totality of monetary transactions”
[and ignores all non-monetary activities]...

2) "The community is better off when employment is increasing. . ..Cultural, social,
or environmental costs of increased employment are secondary considerations". ..

3) "Increased employment is most effectively advanced by increasing the flow of
money into the community. . .largely by increasing the level of exports and by
attracting outside businesses into the community.". ..

4) "The community's internal economy (i.e. the structure of relationships within the

community as opposed to its place in the wider economy) is best left to the market
to determine" (231).

11

Though Still a popular perspective, the growth paradigrn is limited by its single-
mindedness. Boothroyd and Davis (1993) argue that this approach can be useful, but that
more is needed. "There are many times when the growth promotion approach is necessary,
but none in which it is sufficient" (Boothroyd & Davis, 1993, 233). For them and for others,
this approach isolates communities, makes them compete with each other for outside
resources, and is helpful mostly in regions which are already advantaged in size, location,
infrastructure, etc. over Other areas.

A number of other economic development paradigms have developed based on both
technical concerns and localized priorities. However, the main thrust of economic
development in the US. remains focused on growth. Wolrnan & Spitzley (1999) maintain
that “[w]hat most economists mean by economic development is an increase in area
employment, income, or both" (226). Unlike community development, which usually
focuses on increasing community wellbeing, or at least on community infrastructure projects,
economic development focuses on increasing income, jobs, businesses, and consumption.

2.1.2 Who Are Economic Development Decision-makers?

2.1.2.] Local Civic Culture

“Local civic culture is the governing or decision-making culture” (Reese &

Rosenfeld, 2001a, 325).

Economic development occurs differently across various contexts. As such, who
makes program decisions is a fundamental issue. These decision makers are those who are
officially responsible for making economic development decisions. Reese and Rosenfeld
(2002) suggest that the local civic culture (LCC) of decision-making plays a major role in
how economic development is implemented in various communities. The “distinctive local

factors that shape the environment of economic development decision-making,” such as

12

how decision-makers interact, who has access to formal decision processes, and even who is
informally influential, “constitute a community's local civic culture" (Reese 8c Rosenfeld,
2002, 3). These authors recognize that the official Structure, which designates the formal
powers of decision makers, is also interlinked with informal influence and the long term
histories of local communities. Exploring LCC is an attempt to identify how local cultures
affect both formal structures and informal relationships. According to Reese and Rosenfeld
(2002), economic development decisions are a product of this local culture as LCC creates
decision processes and empowers decision makers. Finally, the local culture is also linked to
an outer environment that includes the national economy and larger trends, things that are
uncontrollable at the local level. This environment, for instance the shift away from
manufacturing in the US, informs developers’ options. .

However, in this thesis, LCC, which describes the decision rules and relationships
among decision-makers, differs from an ideology. Ideologies are systems of beliefs
underlying an issue, such as economic development. These belief sets establish how an issue
is defined and who is empowered to make decisions about it. In the case of economic
development, the LCC describes economic development decision-makers and the processes
and relationships that are involved in making decisions. For instance, in some places, city
governments make these decisions publicly while in other places, they are made privately in
chambers of commerce. In each case, however, the decision process is legitimated by an
underlying ideology which defines economic development itself. For example, the ideology
determines if economic development includes business recruitment, community
infrastructure, or developing a workforce.

As Bowman points out, the “role for civic culture is as antecedent, as background

and context” (2001, 319). This means that the formal decision-making hierarchies are

13

overlaid on the local cultural background—and that formal decision power is combined with
informal influence to create the unique systems of decisions in each context. Reese and
Rosenfeld (2002) examine how economic development decisions are based on the
underlying civic culture which is a product of systems of formal and informal governance
and community histories of participation (or apathy).

2.1.2.2 “W710” Matters

Who makes decisions does matter: economic development looks differently when
communities, businesses, bureaucrats, or politicians make decisions. Reese (1997), in Local
Economic Development maintains that who makes decisions is of central importance. She
argues that local decisions matter, and therefore, since different people will make different
decisions, who makes them also matters. Investigating the question of who decision makers
are and how they make decisions, Reese and Rosenfeld (2002) conceptualized local civic
culture (LCC) to describe the interacting influences over decision-makers’ decisions. The
LCC also includes the influences that create decision makers in the first place.) In other
words, LCC describes the influences which empower and constrain decision makers in given
local contexts. This is why examining the decision process itself is so important.

Reese and Rosenfeld (2001b; 2002) maintain that to understand local civic culture,
one must understand three factors: 1) where primary power and responsibility for decisions
lies (bureaucrats, businesses, chief executive, etc.), 2) the structure of the economic
development body (resources, organizational structure, etc.), and 3) the decision-making
styles of decision makers (entrepreneurial, rational, community Visioning, etc.). In surveys
with 987 cities in the US. and Canada, the authors examine the relationships between the
characteristics of the LCC and the economic development decisions that resulted. They

followed up with purposely sampled case studies of nine cities (three each in Michigan,

14

Ohio, and Canada) that best exemplified a variety of LCCS and resulting policy making.
They found that who is involved in the process greatly affects what decisions are made.
They note that “[a]lthough business and citizen input are related, they lead to different
outcomes. . .. Citizens press for redistribution and equity goals, whereas businesses press for
local business development goals" (Reese & Rosenfeld, 2002, 130). Their study, therefore,
illustrates that the outcome of economic development policy will be different if citizens or
business interests are prioritized in the process.

Others agree, focusing on how local participation changes the focus of economic
development (Sharp et al., 2002; Sullivan, 2004) . Sullivan (2004) contends that when citizens
are excluded, development projects neglect issues of equity and focus on the needs of
community elites. When citizens are included, however, policies are implemented that bring
some benefits to average citizens as well as elites (Sullivan, 2004). Sharp et al. (2002) concur.
They found that a varied local influence over decisions resulted in what they called “self-
development” programs while industrial and business recruitment strategies were run by civil
servants, business leaders, and other experts distanced from community members (Sharp et
al., 2002).

In short, the literature suggests that who makes economic development decisions
matters. When elites, such as bureaucrats and business leaders, are included in decision
processes, economic development focuses on their concerns. When communities are
involved, economic development Strategies respond to the needs of community members
themselves. However, it is the local civic culture in each particular place that determines
who is involved and influential in economic development decision-making. Currently, the
economic development theory supports expert- and elite-led systems that marginalize

community voice.

15

2.1.2.3 Elia'sm: From Polia'cs to Bureaucrats

Scholars in the US. recognize a tendency in economic development to “insulate the
process of economic policy making from popular involvement” (Kantor and David 1988
qtd. in Wolrnan 8c Spitzley, 1999, 255) and to rely on elites for deciSions. The discussion
now turns to an examination of this elitist tendency.

There has been a noticeable shift in economic development from the belief that local
governments and elected officials can spur economic growth to a belief that decision makers
must have specific economic knowledge (Blair 8: Reese, 1999). This shift is due to the Shift
from community development approaches to more specialized economic development ones
(Dewar, 1986; V ogel & Swanson, 1993; Stiglitz, 2002; MacAulay, 2004) as well as the
uncertainty and risk involved in economic development (Boothroyd & Davis, 1993; Reese,
1997; Rubin, 1999; Wolrnan & Spitzley, 1999). Both of these factors have created economic
development decision structures that limit local community influence and isolate decision
processes from the public.

Though theorists favored community development for a time, Vogel and Swanson
(1993) noted a shift in which “emphasis on economic development has replaced the more
balanced community development orientation” (188). These authors describe the shift from
a focus on a variety of community issues to one prioritizing job creation and increasing
revenues, which results in fewer democratic decision processes (V ogel & Swanson, 1993).
This move away from democratic decisions is encouraged by many development scholars
who believe that particular knowledge and expertise is required for making economic
development decisions (Blair & Reese, 1999).

With many economic development scholars, Dewar (1986) supports a position that

economic development decisions should be made by professionals and experts who

16

understand economic theory and analysis. She argued that good economic development
decisions, based on technical economic understanding, are likely to be unpopular.
Therefore, even with good information, a politician would be unlikely to make the right
policies dictated by economic expertise (Dewar, 1986). She critiques Iron Range Resources
for this reason. Since elected officials make final decisions, popular but ineffective (or even
harmful) policies are often implemented (Dewar, 1986).

The literature suggests that the desire for expert decisions has led to the de-
democratization of economic development policy in two ways: 1) economic development
decisions are being removed from public bodies with regular citizen participation (Wolrnan
& Spitzley, 1999) and 2) the needs of the community are marginalized in the public process
itself (V ogel & Swanson, 1993). The concentration on a limited economic view of a
community’s needs—one that focuses on creating jobs, for example—automatically reduces
local community influence because the majority of community issues and interests (for
instance education, community organization and mobilization, and local quality of life) are
excluded from the development process (V ogel & Swanson, 1993). When development is
narrowly pursued, wide-ranging community goals must be marginalized in decision
processes.

Additionally, local communities are marginalized when economic development
programming is Shifted outside of usual public processes, particularly when it is housed in
non-public organizations and public-private partnerships. Wolman and Spitzley (1999, 255)
found that

local governments engage in a variety of strategies for limiting public participation,
including placing economic development decision making in independent or quasi-
independcnt authorities outside the realm of general-purpose decision-making
bodies to which citizens and citizens groups have more Structured access.

17

Removing decisions from citizen review or normal government processes makes it
much harder for community members to be involved in or have influence over decisions
affecting their communities. Sullivan (2004) confirmed this distance between communities
and decisions in a 2003 study of nonprofit economic development'organizations (N EDOs).
NEDOS are a growing form of economic development organizations that combine public
and business sector resources to promote economic growth. They are often called industrial
development corporations or economic development corporations. Sullivan (2004)
discovered that community elites, those in business organizations and city and county
governments, are directly involved in NEDOS but that citizens are only involved indirectly,
through their government officials. Previously, governmental bodies led development policy
and were ostensibly accountable to citizens through normal public processes. In these new
economic development organizations, government officials are no longer directing the work.
The new policy-makers, local business owners and other elites, are not accountable to local
community members as government officials are. Also, community representatives have less
influence in development efforts.

Mier et. al. (1993) described a case in which economic development decisions were
removed from government offices to decrease the influence that a new government may
have on economic development decision-making. In particular, they examined how new
African-American city administrations focused on economic development programs. They
found that as the new administrations redirected development efforts toward the needs of
community members, city elites, including business owners and former white
administrations, responded in two ways: 1) they moved economic development decisions

outside the usual governance structure or 2) they challenged the political actions themselves

(Mier et al., 1993).

18

In Chicago, attempts were made to depoliticize (and de-democratize) the
development decision-making process. . .. [while i]n Richmond the [elite] strategy
was to reduce the political strength of the African-American community. . .then to
battle African-American policies in the courts. (Mier et al., 1993, 103)

In both cases, elites limited economic growth to focus on business needs rather than
the needs of local communities and their members. Distancing the decision process from
the communities was just one Strategy to maintain elite control.

Many scholars are concerned about the privatization of economic development
resources. Stiglitz (2002) argued that economic development activities that exclude
community members rarely help them, regardless of the expertise of those making decisions.
He argued that without accountability, experts can and frequently do ignore the effects of
economic change on people—their loss of livelihoods and impoverishment—and that these
effects are a legitimate concern that should be addressed in economic development (Stiglitz,
2002). MacAuley (2004) agreed that without direct accountability to community members
through local public processes and bodies, economic development was not likely to truly
address the community’s needs or aspirations. For Stiglitz (2002) and MacAuley (2004),
better outcomes would result from citizen involvement—outcomes tailored to the needs of
local people.
2.1.2.4 Fa voring Business Perspectives

"Virtually all of the literature emphasizes the central role of business in local
economic development politics and policy making" (W olman & Spitzley, 1999, 249).

The continuing isolation of economic development policy making from communities
and the limited focus on purely economic factors has resulted in a preference for business
perspectives in development. This preference has affected policies in which economic

development attempts to downplay the role of the State, reducing welfare, infrastructure and

19

other government works, while focusing on the factors that business supports (such as low-
or no—tax policies).

Eisenshitz (1993) notes the growth of business involvement in development
initiatives and suggests that this changes the policies that result. He finds that in
employment programs as well as other areas,

"Business ...[Supports] a bootstrap strategy which sees renewal emerging from the
indigenous resources of the locality. . ..business is trying to meet the quintessential
social democratic dream of combining welfare and economic development: showing
that economic regeneration need not be at the expense of local welfare if it takes the
bootstraps path. The local [private] project has replaced the state, and the
movement's symbol, the social entrepreneur, has taken over from the bureaucrat:

the market is tamed and social benefits gained through enterprise" (Eisenschitz,
1993,148)

Here he notes that pro-business Strategies focus on the market economy and suggest
that enhanced reliance on the market is a better tool for development than protection from
market cycles. This focus on the market limits economic development to a pro-business
orientation, without a real understanding of how the fluctuating market affects community
members.

Another reason that economic development favors business is due to the
relationship between the inherent uncertainty in development ventures and the professional
roles of developers. At the foundation of the economic development ideology is the idea
that developers are experts who can improve their communities’ economies where non-
professionals would fail (Boothroyd & Davis, 1993). This is one justification for moving
economic development decisions out of mainstream political bodies, i.e. city governments.
The greatest weakness of this position is that economic development projects and programs
do not always achieve their goals. In these cases, developers must explain their failure in
spite of their expertise. Wolman and Spitzley (1999), Rubin (1999), Reese (1997) and others

note that due to this risk, economic development decisions become ritualized and

20

formalistic—where following the procedures can get in the way of innovation or analysis.
Economic developers face great uncertainty about the future and often lack an exact science
or methodological expertise to perform detailed economic analysis. Therefore, they are
unable to rely solely on economic analysis and their decisions are made through a system of
protocols based on lessons learned for successful economic development programs. These
protocols may be a series of forms that must be filled out, due diligence that must be
performed, or steps that must be approved before action can be taken. Protocols can help
ensure the feasibility of a project, but when developers have to be concerned with the steps
rather than with the ultimate goal of meeting community needs, protocols can become a
problem.

Wolman and Spitzley (1999) note that "most economic development policy activity is
a combination of a few 'big events' and many routinized decisions and day to day actions.
And such routines are the province of professionals and bureaucrats” not local community
members (253). Reese (1997, 84) agrees, noting “that economic development policymaking
tends to be heavily influenced by bureaucratic or professional actors and is based more on
decision rule: or procedure: t/Jan rational mob/sir" (Reese, 1997, 84, emphasis added). She
recognizes that rational economic analysis may be side-Stepped and that following the rules
or procedures can take precedence over analytical decisions. So while economic
development theory is concerned with economic expertise, in practice, expertise can be
reduced to following protocols.

The tendency to rely on protocols is due to “[t]he uncertainty and risk involved in
economic development decision making [which] lead professionals to resort to standard
decision rules and formalistic or symbolic behavior" (W olrnan & Spitzley, 1999, 257). Rubin

(1999) showed that this uncertainty resulted in economic development strategies which cater

21

to business interests. He found that economic developers work with the risk of the private
sector but the scrutiny of the public sector (Rubin, 1999). In this environment, economic
development can only be successful if businesses participate (Rubin, 1999). This makes
developers dependent on business and encourages them to focus On business needs rather
than community ones (Rubin, 1999). This bias is hidden in “the day-in-day-out relationship
that emerges as the practitioner tries to survive in a difficult work environment” (Rubin,
1999, 275). According to Rubin’s (1999) findings, while some economic development
professionals can provide site lists or other information about the community to interested
businesses, these activities can become a mire of bureaucracy. Though these tasks are
important to economic development efforts, they can hinder innovative, analytical
approaches. The bias is that these professionals provide the information to the business
community that businesses want—reducing communities to their business-friendly tax
structures or low wage rates (and low Standards of living) rather than focusing on
community members’ values, needs, and goals. The challenge is that meeting business
needs, while complicated, is much easier than grappling with the intricacies of the
community’s entire social Structure.

Because these administrative tasks, i.e. maintaining site listings, are often under the
radar and hard to see, developers need to Show some concrete economic development

success. Rubin continues

[s]till, both ego and, perhaps, maintaining their jobs require visible successes,
successes that are obtainable only with the cooperation of businesses, especially
those about to relocate or expand. Accordingly, these practitioners require ways of
claiming credit for visible outcomes. . ..Such attempts to have available a set of
activin'es helpful to the business community leads economic development
practitioners to act as a pressure group to provide incentives to the business
community. . ..The bias toward business emerges because it makes the practitioner
appear as if he or She is accomplishing something (Rubin, 1999, 275).

22

This bias is very subtle: “the sum of many small decisions rather than one or two
dramatic capitulations” (Rubin, 1999, 275). The business bias is a coping strategy used to
demonstrate success where such success is less visible in other development policy arenas.
Hence, the dominant ideology of economic development distances development decisions
from local communities, is run by elites (considered “experts”), and favors businesses over
community needs.

2.1.3 Movement Toward Local Involvement

Critiques of economic growth and its many failures, and especially its inability to
distribute the benefits of growth throughout a community, have resulted in a number of
more localized economic development approaches. These are approaches which focus
economic development aims on community members themselves. From entrepreneurialism
and the Third Wave approaches which adapt traditional economic development strategies
more precisely to local community contexts, economic development practitioners
incorporated more mechanisms for local communities to have input in decision processes
(Blair & Endres, 1999; Clarke & Guile, 1999; Eisinger, 1999). Two approaches focus
specifically on involving community members in decisions: Community-based Economic
Development (C-BED) and Community Economic Development (CED). These deserve
quick mention because they challenge the predominant ideology by creating more explicit
ways for local communities to be involved in economic development.

The difference between traditional economic development as growth and alternative
C-BED and CED perspectives is the holistic and integrated approaches of the latter. C-
BED “starts with a community’s own definition of their economic problems and seeks to
tackle these through initiatives that make sense to this community” (MacFarlane, 1993, 176).

This approach assumes that economic development is unequivocally linked with other social

23

and structural problems and therefore cannot be tackled independent of these issues
(MacFarlane, 1993).

Starting from the same foundation, CED goes even further. Its underlying
assumption is that participation is more effective than traditional industrial development
which

“emphasizes economic growth by attracting induStrial firms, with little input from,
or concern for, non-economic impacts on the community. . .. If CED stems from
the economic development paradigm, including a community development element
suggests a synergy to meet the economic, social, cultural and environmental needs
of the community in a holistic long-term planning horizon previously ignored by
either the community or the economic development approaches.” (Koster &
Randall, 2005, 45).

The CED view expanded and has been divided into sub-approaches, each with
different goals. Boothroyd and Davis (1993) and Koster and Randall (2005) created
typologies that highlight different levels and types of local participation. Those ways in
which local communities participate in the policy-making process, input mechanisms,
demonstrate the importance of who makes development decisions. Cummings (2001) traces
these approaches to the concept of “community control” that formed the basis of the
Community Action Program of 1964. This “was designed to increase neighborhood control
over the implementation of antipoverty efforts by delegating authority to community action
agencies to conduct programs in the areas of education, health, job training, housing, social
services, and economic development” (Cummings, 2001, 415).

The critique of expert- and elite—focused economic development processes that led
to CED and C-BED approaches is evident in other policy arenas as well. Across the
spectrum of social policy, public participation is seen as key because elite decisions have not
always been able to solve social problems. A literature on public participation has been

created by scholars concerned with this. These scholars examine the influence community

24

members can have over decision processes and the ways and purposes for them to be
involved in different contexts. The research analyzed public participation at Iron Range
Resources using this literature as background.
2.2 PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Participation in public decisions has been a major focus of Political Science,
Sociology, and Community Development among other fields. The literature in these areas
has much to offer the discussion on economic development decision-making. For example,
in environmental planning, theorists recognize that expert- and elite—driven decision-making
strategies can produce poor outcomes because “they de-emphasize the consideration of
affected interests in favor of ‘objeCtive’ analysis” (Renn et al., 1995a, 1). As such, “they
suffer from a lack of popular acceptance” and “they Slight the local and anecdotal knowledge
of the people most familiar with the problem” (Renn et al., 1995a, 1). These critiques are
Similar to critiques of elitist economic development decision making described above.

2.2.1 Levels of Influence

The literature on participation in decision-making reveals there is great variability in
the influence that the public has over the decision process. In some cases, community
members are formal decision-makers; in others they have an opportunity to examine and
comment on proposed policy; and in still others, they can gain information about programs
available to them. Sullivan (citing Gaunt, 1998, 2004) describes a typology of these levels of
influence:

“(1) Informational participation means that citizens receive information from [decision-
makers], for example information about upcoming development projects and the
amount of public money that will be used. Although this level of participation is the
least influential of the three, it does allow citizens to serve as “watchdogs" (Burke,
1983), and it may lead to more active citizen participation in the future.

(2) Reoiewpafliapation refers to citizens not only obtaining information about
development projects but also commenting on the proposed projects before they

25

are implemented. This level of participation allows citizens to express their needs
and interests, which may be different from those of business leaders (Abatena, 1997;
Daley & Marsiglia, 2001), and to evaluate whether the project will satisfy those
needs. The limitation of review participation is that Citizen participation is merely
reactive; they are not involved in designing the development projects.

(3) The third and highest level is interactinepartiapation whereby citizens are involved
in development projects from the early stages. They help define the problems and
needs of the community and participate in designing projects that can meet those
needs.” (61)

These different forms of participation clearly indicate different levels of influence in
the decision process. Informational participation is passive; community members receive
information but have no effect on decisions themselves. Review participation is reactive;
problems have already been formulated, decisions made, but community members can
attempt to advise decision-makers before decisions are finalized. Interactive participation is
active. Community members are part of the decision process from the very beginning.
They not only make decisions, but they also help to define problems and goals and to design
the projects to address their needs.

2.2.2 Purposes and Mechanisms of Participation

There are a variety of reasons the public is included in decision processes and a
variety of ways, or mechanisms, in which they may be included. These input mechanisms
affect who participates and how much influence they have over decisions. The interaction
of mechanisms and purposes are what define the influence participants have in the process.

Different decision-makers have different reasons for including the public in decision
processes. Renn et al. (1995a, 5) note that “[a]dministrators, citizens, stakeholders, and
experts may all desire participation, but for quite different reasons”. These reasons include
uncovering the perspectives of community members to add ideas to the process,
democratizing the decision process, or redistributing social power. For bureaucrats in

particular, participation is often an instrumental means to prevent public dissent. As Renn et

26

al. (1995a) state, “participation is organized only to inform decision makers. . . [or] to acquire
the public support necessary to implement policy” (6).

The purpose of seeking public participation is directly related to the forms that
participation takes. Table 2.1 summarizes Cornwall’s (2003, 1327) typology of participation

modes. Below, these concepts are related to economic development.

Table 2.1: Participation T ology as Described in Cornwall (2003)

 

 

 

 

 

Mode of Associated Why invite/ involve? [purposes] Participants
Participation with.. . viewed as
Functional Beneficiary To enlist people in projects or processes, so as to Objects
participation secure compliance, minimize dissent, lend
legitimacy
Instrumental Community To make projects or interventions run more Instruments
participation emciently, by enlisting contributions, delegating
responsibilities
Consultative Stakeholder To get in tune with public views and values, to Actors
participation garner good ideas, to defuse opposition, to
enhance responsiveness
Transfor- Citizen To build political capabilities, critical Agents
mative participation consciousness and confidence; to enable to
demand rights; to enhance accountability

 

 

 

 

2.2.2.1 Functional Participation

Reese (1997) noted that public participation in economic development planning can
“be used as trouble Shooters and to provide support for projects” (89). In this role,
community members are seen as objects and participation is designed to minimize conflict
and give legitimacy to the decisions made by the agency. Here, the agency is attempting to
avoid conflict or opposition and smooth the process for bureaucrats. When envisioned
functionally, public participation can be used to ease the functioning of an economic
development body.
2.2.2.2 Instrumental Participation

Instrumental participation can be described as using participants to assist decision

makers. Here, community experts, those residents with skills desired by the agency, might

27

find themselves in advisory roles, suggesting improvements in projects for technical
efficiency. The volunteer contributions of participants make implementation easier for
developers—such as community engineers doing structural analysis while decision makers
focus on goals or planning issues. Many technical advisory committees would fall under this
instrumental heading. Basically, the public is perceived as a tool to be used in accomplishing
the goals of the agency and the expertise of specific community members is emphasized.
2.2.2.3 Consultative Pardcipation

The idea of consultation rests on the concept that decision-makers do not have all
the information needed to make good decisions. The question is one of efficiency and the
public is included to add more knowledge to the available resources. Sullivan (2004, 58)
emphasizes the consultative role when he suggests that “citizens can help identify
community needs, articulatedevelopment goals to meet these needs, and contribute their
knowledge and skills.” likewise, King 8: Hustedde (2001) see local participation as adding
information to the decision process: “[c]itizen engagement is crucial for helping community
leaders identify issues and make good decisions" ’ (1, emphasis mine). They give three reasons
for citizen participation; the latter two clearly suggest a consultative perspective (the first is
transformative as will be discussed in the following section):

[F]irst, if a democracy is going to thrive, it rests on cidzen involvement, without
which democratic ideals will erode. Second, some elected officials have drawn
lessons from more progressive firms that involve workers as problem-solvers and
visionary thinkers. More people involved in problem-solving and analysis can lead
to added creativity, more insights and better decisions... Third, citizen involvement
can lead to greater ownership of local issues and problems with a more realistic
understanding of the limitations often placed upon those in power positions. (King
& Hustedde, 2001, 5-6)

Creating a new tool for economic development strategizing in rural U.S.
communities, Buescher et al. (2001) note “that for rural development efforts to be

sustainable, all interested members of the community must be involved in the decision

28

making” (68). These authors critique expert— and elite-driven economic development
methods because they ignore community goals (Buescher et al., 2001). For them, economic
development is more effective when local community perspectives are included.

Reese and Fasenfest (1999) also highlight the added efficiency of consultative
participation. They propose increased local involvement in evaluation of economic
development because the expert measures, such as job growth, might not match the desires
of the local community (Reese & Fasenfest, 1999). Rather, the needs of locals should be
taken into consideration in the formulation and evaluation of economic development
initiatives.

The commonality for these authors is that local participants are key to helping
decision makers make better decisions. It is a question of efficiency: the more information
in the process, the better decisions can be. However, this view does not suggest that
community members should be involved in decision making or Strategic planning directly——
rather they should inform the decisions made by those in control of the process.
2.2.2.4 Transforma n've Participation

Transformative participation claims that local participation is an opportunity not
only for assisting decision-makers, but for building greater citizen capacity for public
engagement. Based on the notion of participatory democracy, “[c]itizen involvement is
essential for genuine local and representative democracy to develop” (Sullivan, 2004, 58).

According to Brett (2003), stronger levels of participation in which agencies cede
some control over decisions to community groups have many advantages as “a way to
expand people’s capabilities, increase their self esteem, and improve performance by obliging

agencies to involve users in decision-making through participatory research, and by

29

subjecting their activities to direct popular control” (6). This view suggests that participation
is a key part of a strong democracy and strong decision-making.

However, transformative participation does not require that citizens have control
over decision processes, but rather that they are included in meaningful dialogue about
community policy. Transformative participation is vital not only because it ensures that
community interests are taken into account (Stiglitz, 2002), but also “it is only through
participating that individuals develop a political dimension to their being” (Renn et al., 1995a,
351). Sullivan (2004) agrees in his critique of non-profit economic development
organizations. For him, more participation is beneficial because “citizen participation in city
government decision-making is an essential element of genuine democracy” (Sullivan, 2004,
61). As he examined the shift from public decision-making organizations to semi-private
ones, he saw economic development moving from a transformative decision-process (a
public one) to a more instrumental or functional one (Sullivan, 2004). He supports
participation in public processes as a way to increase citizen capacities and expand
democracy.

In summary, economic development participation can take a variety of forms: from
communities who are actively engaged in the programming dialogue to others who are
marginally informed to reduce dissent. Decision makers create input mechanisms which
allow for the modes of participation they desire for easing their policy-making
responsibilities.

2.2.3 Issues and Participation Modes

While there are a variety of participation modes and purposes, different modes are
appropriate for dealing with different public decision—making situations. Renn et al. (1995a)

note that public dialogues can be framed in three ways: 1) as issues of knowledge and

30

expertise; 2) as issues of experience and trust; and 3) as issues of worldviews and values. The
first are Situations which are framed as factual arguments about causes and effects and are
“primarily characterized by solutions driven by expertise” (Renn et al., 1995a, 355). In these
situations, functional and instrumental modes of participation are Seen as being appropriate
for informing the public of the issues and the decisions made. This is what Sullivan (2004)
called informational participation. Situations can also be framed as a dialogue about the
public’s trust in government institutions to deal with a problem (Renn et al., 1995a). Rather
than technical information or education, “the emphasis is on achieving mutual awareness of
each other’s expectations and a commitment to the principle of reciprocity” (Renn et al.,
1995a, 355). Here, public participation is concerned with building citizen trust and
confidence in the institutions as well as building bureaucrats’ trust and confidence in the
citizens (Renn et al., 1995a) and may use instrumental and consultative modes of
participation to allow citizens some review influence. Finally, when a situation revolves
around competing worldviews and values, “neither technical expertise nor institutional
competence and openness are adequate conditions for reaching collective agreement.
[Rather,] decision making here requires a fundamental consensus on the issues that underlie
the debate” (Renn et al., 1995a, 356). These situations would likely call for transformative
modes of participation and interactive influence because an inclusive ideology must be built
to frame the dialogue.

It is important to understand how different policy dialogues can affect the types of
participation valued by decision makers and participants. How an issue is framed is vital to
how it will be addressed. For example, assume that an economic development agency
proposes to fund a new factory building. It is in the interest of some to frame the issue as

one of facts and expertise, e.g. how many employees might be hired, how much return on

31

investment expected, or how the project will be monitored and enforced. However, if
residents do not trust that the factory will hire from the local community, they may be
concerned that the agency is giving too much and getting too few guarantees from the
company. Another example might be that they do not believe that the waste from the
factory will be harmless to their living environment. This is an issue of trust. Finally, there
may be members of the public who feel that this factory is the wrong kind of economic
development for their community—they may disagree with the emphasis on jobs, believe
that the real problem is a lack of community infrastructure, or want to emphasize developing
the natural features of the community for tourism instead. This is an issue of values and
worldviews. Because issues framed around knowledge and expertise privilege the
perspective of decision makers, it is in their interest to frame economic development
decisions as ones about expertise. When framed in that way, it is appropriate that the public
have little influence because they are not considered to be experts. Accordingly,
participation focuses on informing locals on the technical aspects of the project, not
engaging them in a dialogue about what it should be. The importance of this framing will be
integral to the examination of Iron Range Resources.

2.2.4 Critiques of Public Participation

Just as motives to include the public come from different viewpoints, so too do
critiques of public participation. From an economic developer’s perspective,

in the very act of seeking this support [of their policies through public participation],

officials often encounter—and may even contribute to the development of—public

opposition. This opposition is not easily transformed into policy adjustments or
alternatives. In short, administrators cannot do their jobs (Renn et al., 1995a, 6).

By carefully controlling public participation in advisory boards, decision-makers can

protect themselves from more public opposition and increase their ability to do their jobs

32

(Reese, 1997). Thus, input mechanisms are often carefully designed to align with the goals
and programs of policy-makers.

Another challenge to public participation is that some communities lack mechanisms
for transformative and consultative forms of participation. Clarke'and Guile (1999, 174)
maintain that “few current American political institutions are geared to the consensual,
cooperative decision processes demanded by” transformative and consultative participation.
Even if there is desire for more transformative public participation, decision makers might
be unable to encourage such participation because the mechanisms for it do not exist.

Just as economic developers have focused on the [need for expertise, critics of
participation highlight the need for expertise as well. Beaulier (2004) is among those who
believe that “[i]f the average citizen is involved in the discourse, many more ‘free lunch’
policies—lacking in economic insight—might result” (352). He suggests that opening
decision processes to public participation means that fewer economically efficient decisions
would be made. Rather, the public would make policies that are self—serving, such as low-
property taxes but high expenditures (Beaulier, 2004). Or communities might give out
resources in ways that professionals would not consider conducive to economic growth—
perhaps through resident tax rebates instead Of business recruitment plans.

The debate over whether community members should be involved in decision
dialogue is a polarizing one. “What has resulted is a standoff between government
administrators on the one hand, who offer participation opportunities with no real power to
citizens, and locally-impacted citizens on the other hand, who block projects through other

means such as protest and complaint” (Renn et al., 1995a, 7)1. This dichotomy is

 

‘ These authors critique participatory processes not on how each actor fares in the outcome, but on how the
processes lead to shared understandings of common interests. Webler (in Renn et al, 1995a, 9) bases this
process critique on Habermas and suggests that “the key is critical self reflecrion. Habermas promotes

33

unproductive for accomplishing economic development goals and neglects the continuum of
mechanisms for community participation in public policy dialogue. A variety of input
mechanisms combine public participation with elite and expert decision processes.
Understanding how these mechanisms assist or challenge the policy dialogue is key to
understanding how participation works in different contexts.
2.2.4.1 Input Mechanisms for Communities

The ways and opportunities for community members to be involved in public policy
decision processes, including program and project planning, are referred to as “input
mechanisms.” Common input mechanisms in the US. include public meetings and hearings,
workshops (where experts or officials educate the public), citizen referenda or initiatives, and
a variety of advisory boards and councils. As indicated above, each allows for different
levels of influence and includes participants in different ways and for different purposes.
Renn et al. (1995a) studied a number of input mechanisms focusing on how inclusive they
were and what kinds of participation they engendered. They found that though public
meetings (workshops, hearings, forums, etc.) are quite inclusive, they allow for little influence
or opportunity for meaningful dialogue (Renn et al., 1995a). Whereas government officials
might view low public attendance at such events as the public’s consent to the policies of the
agency, citizens are often discouraged by their lack of influence (Renn et al., 1995a). Citizen
initiatives, grassroots attempts to change the legislation surrounding a public issue, are
usually outside of the formal governing structure and Often have more influence than public
forums (Renn et al., 1995a). However, participation may be uneven in initiatives as only

those particularly concerned with and motivated by an issue are likely to be involved.

 

introspection among free and autonomous beings so that they will think about the type of society that they
want, before committing to new relations. Public participation can and should be a means to realize the critical
awareness.” Here, public processes should engender a discourse “wherein values and norms themselves are
discussed and agreed upon in a setting free of any kind of coercion” (Renn et al., 1995a, 9).

34

Finally, citizen advisory committees are a common input mechanism. These committees
may have considerable influence in both formal and informal decision processes, but
participants are usually chosen by elites and often limited to people similar to and trusted by
other decision makers. Because Iron Range Resources uses a number of these committees,
they were examines in more detail.

2.2.4.2 Citizen Advisory Committees

Citizen advisory committees (CACS) are a common method of involving local
community members in public decision making and are commonly used in a variety of
economic development contexts (Reese, 1997). Iron Range Resources uses a number of

CACS in their decision processes, including ones required by law (the Technical Advisory

Committee) and more informally appointed ones (e.g. the Partners Advisory Committee). In

their extensive evaluation of input mechanisms used for environmental remediation, Renn

et. al (1995a) examined CACS and found that:

o The sponsoring agency defines the role and tasks of the CAC. Members may set their
own agenda (within the limits of their role), meeting times, etc. and usually have a set
time period of regular meetings to accomplish their mission.

0 CAC membership is restricted and usually specially selected by the sponsoring agency (or
through volunteering); the public is either not welcomed at meetings, or not allowed to
comment during them (unlike public hearings or meetings).

0 “Membership of the committee [CAC] is typically chosen from among the leaders of the
community. They belong to the same class of elites as the governmental officials,
experts, and stakeholders. They are more apt to rely on instrumental understandings of
the problem and downplay the value Of anecdotal evidence and competing normative

argument” (342).

35

CAC members are usually not hierarchically organized, although a chair may be
appointed to serve as a liaison with the agency, and decisions are often made by
consensus. However, false consensus may be reached if facilitation does not give time to
alternate viewpoints.

CACS are dependent on their sponsoring body, so that their information comes from the
agency, and if they become unmanageable or disagreeable they may be disbanded,
ignored, or cut off from the agency.

CACS have no structural requirement to consult experts or other stakeholders, though
some may choose to do so. Nor are they encouraged to raise deeper or underlying issues
with the agency.

CACS are not required to come to any common understandings of the factual or

normative issues at stake.

2.2.4.3 Picking Participants

As policy-making moves to more locally-controlled, democratic decision processes

(as described in Kaufman & Alfonso, 1997; Gaventa, 1999; Gaventa et al., 2002;]Ones &

Gaventa, 2002, among others), there is corresponding attention paid to who is choosing

participants. This is particularly true if participants will have unique access to the decision

process. Decision makers choose participants, or “target” them, based on the purpose of

the participatory mechanism as well as the level of influence desired. For example,

instrumental participation targets those with the specific expertise desired by the agency,

while transformative participation invites a variety of community members to participate.

MacAulay (2004) critiques targeted participation because it

limits the range of legitimate leadership [of economic development efforts] by
privileging people in the community who share a common worldview and language
with these external agencies. Attempts to secure community autonomy and meet

36

people’s needs through the forging of an inclusive agenda are emasculated by the
involvement of powerful outside class forces (454).

MacAuley (2004) highlights that the ideology that privileges elites continues to
dominate, even when local participation is a priority, because those choosing participants are
still making the decisions. For him, genuine representative democratic participation is the
only way to overcome the elite bias in economic development (MacAulay, 2004).

Others also critique the idea of targeted participation in CACS. Renn et al. (1995a)
note that

the experiences with CACS. . .tend to show, however, that deliberate selection of
group representatives as well as volunteering lead to serious distortions of public
values and interests. ..

Furthermore, if participation is left up to voluntary selection or appointment,
onlookers may be cynical of the participants because either they appear privileged
(by appointment) or too ambitious (through volunteering). (353)

Here we see again first, that elites choose participants who think like them and thus a
biased view of local values, needs, goals, etc. results and second, that distrust is caused by
targeted participation.
2.2.4.4 CACS as Participation Mechanisms

As do other input mechanisms, citizen advisory committees have the potential to be
used for informational, review, or interactive levels of influence and to support any of the
modes of participation. However, Renn et al.’s (1995a) in-depth study of CACS found that
they are “appropriate for both disputes over facts (especially the technical advisory
committees) and disputes over trust” (359). This is because the processes are usually long-
term and participants may learn a great deal about the work—what Sullivan (2004) would
call informational influence. Also, CACS allow participants to build trust with the agency

members with whom they work over that time. Similarly, CACS described by Renn et al.

37

(1995a) are usually functional and consultative in that they are used to overcome or diffuse
opposition and to add some public perspectives to the decision process.

Because CACS are effective when dealing with expertise and trust they can be used
by decision makers to reduce issues of values to facts. Conflict between experts and
communities over what is necessary and desired is common. In environmental remediation
work, for example, scholars have investigated this conflict between experts and communities
extensively and can inform the economic development literature. Examining a
communication program designed to educate community members about an environmental
remediation project, Satterfield and Levin (2002) noted that

much of the public disagrees with the expert community. . ..Scientists and regulators
have often viewed this distrust and difference of opinion as either 1) a problem of
scientific and technical illiteracy on the public's part (a failure to understand the
science and hence a fearful or resistant attitude), and/ or 2) a problem of poor
quality education and communication on the part of experts (8).

However, these authors found that when given scientific and technical training,
community members used their new-found scientific knowledge to support their own
underlying values rather than to agree with the experts. Thus, in this example", experts
viewed environmental remediation as an issue of technical knowledge, and considered their
allowable limits of toxins to be scientifically correct. However, they found that community
members had different values for what a clean and safe community would be, and that even
with scientific training, the community continued to advocate for lower limits for the toxins.
What this demonstrates is that experts frame issues around their expertise, because they
believe they know the correct answer to the problem. However, if the situation is one
focusing on values, it cannot be resolved with technical knowledge. This applies to
economic development decisions as well as other public decision processes. If experts frame

the question, economic development becomes a process about technical details such as how

38

many jobs or how much tax abatement. Questions about whether economic development
should be focusing on jobs or not and even whether the community wants this type of
economic development remain excluded from the dialogue.

This section outlined the forms, purposes, and influence of public participation in
decision making. It also examined the role and characteristics of community advisory
committees. Finally, it reviews the matters of who is chosen to participate and how.

Because participation empowers some and marginalizes others, the discussion now turns to
an examination of how power in decision processes can be conceptualized by and hidden in
economic development ideologies.

2.3 IDEOLOGY AND POWER IN DECISION MAKING

When examining issues of decision-making and how they are framed, the analysis
becomes focused on power. Those who make decisions have formal power (due to their
decision role in the organization) and those who can influence decision makers have
informal power (due to their place in the LCC). Additionally, those who frame the issues
and build ideologies have considerably more power than those who can only work within the
framed context (Gaventa, 1980). The power to influence the actions of other agents is
coercive power, often hidden in ideologies that privilege the knowledge of the powerful over
the knowledge of the less-powerful and legitimate the marginalization of the latter in
decision-making processes.

2.3.1 Coercive power

Wartenberg (1991) notes that “coercive power can be exercised by an agent if (1) she
is able to alter the set of action-alternatives available to another agent, and (2) she uses this
fact to make a threat to that agent” (W artenberg, 1991, 96). What he means is that one’s

ability to influence another formally, i.e. making economic development decisions, can also

39

give one the ability to coerce others who depend on the formal decisions. Coercive power is
the power to make threats—either explicitly or implicitly—and to influence others due to
those threats. In economic development, businesses might wield coercive power if they
threaten to relocate. They are more or less influential based on the role of the business in
the community and the connections they have to the decision-making bodies.

Power is important to economic development. Basically,

the end result of power is to be able to marshal resources to achieve social ends. In
sum, public policies are shaped by the following three elements:

1. The composition of a community's governing coalition,
2. The nature of relationships among members Of the governing coalition, and

3. The resources that members bring to the governing coalition. (Reese &
Rosenfeld, 2002, 30).

For Reese and Rosenfeld (2002), these powerful governing coalitions are dependent
on the local civic culture. In effect, agents are powerful (or influential) if they can bring a
great deal of resources to the process, resources they can use to influence decision makers—
and the resources are part of the LCC. Decision makers are powerful due to their role as
decision makers, but a decision maker who can marshal social resources may be more
powerful if she is able to coerce other decision makers to her side.

Wartenberg (1991) notes that coercive power is aided by the creation of an ideology.
This is similar to Lukes’ third face of power (Gaventa, 1980) whereby subordinate actors do
not recognize, or may even buy into, their own subordination.

Because coercive power occasions resistance to its exercise, an agent with coercive
power has reason to seek a means to reduce such resistance. One way to do so is to
obscure the nature of the relationship between herself and the subordinate agent.
That is, a dominant agent has a reason to seek to develop misunderstandings among
subordinate agents about whether they are actually being coerced (W artenberg,
1991,102-103).

40

The review has already explored how, using the explicit idea of expertise, elites have
marginalized local citizens in economic development. These ideas are part of the ideology
that underlies and legitimates the decision process.

2.3.2 Ideologies

Foucault (1980) explained that power is self-sustaining through its construction of
discourses (what are called ideologies here), the systems of concepts that define how people
think about an issue. He argues that as knowledge is deemed “truth,” other similar
knowledges are also validated, reinforcing the power of those who hold those types of
knowledge (Foucault, 1980). This discourse privileges one form of knowledge over anorher,
defining what issues are appropriate to address, how they should be addressed, who should
address them, etc. From the literature, the economic growth ideology limits what type of
programs and projects are eligible to be called “economic development,” privileges business
knowledge over community knowledge and expert over local experience, and determines
that developers should make economic development decisions.

These underlying ideologies frame discussions and those in power attempt to
reinforce ideologies that privilege their positions. This framing distances decision making
from the public. Renn et al. (1995a)explored this when discussing their typology of public
policy-making situations discussed earlier in this chapter.

Often business and government attempt to re-frame higher level conflicts into lower
level ones: third level conflicts [over worldviews and values] are presented as first
[knowledge and expertise] or second level [experience and trust] conflicts, and
second level conflicts as first level. This is an attempt to focus the discussion on
technical evidence, in which the agency is fluent (Diets et al. 1989). Citizens who
participate are thus forced to use first level (factual) arguments to rationalize their
value concerns. Unfortunately, this is often misunderstood by experts as
‘irrationality’ on the part of the public. Frustrated, the public retreats to due process
and routinization of the process, abscising it of substance, and departs with
disillusion and distrust of the system. (Renn et al., 1995a, 357)

41

Since elites frame the discussion, citizens are forced to work within the elite ideology
to address their concerns. In this way, local concerns about issues of values are marginalized
and re-framed into issues of expertise. This is the problem that Satterfield and Levin (2002)
examine when noting that educating the public about toxin levels did not bring them into
alignment with expert opinions. Though community members were trying to use the
language of the experts, they still pushed for stronger and tougher regulations because the
underlying issue was one of values and the local values differed from those of experts.

2.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS FOR THIS STUDY

While the economic development literature has begun to focus on how local
participation is structured, it has largely neglected the power implications of this structure.
The public participation literature has examined how the public may be involved in decision
making and how mechanisms for participation may be used to empower or marginalize local
communities. This study draws on the strengths of these two literatures to focus on how
particular input mechanisms (especially community advisory committees) interact with
formal deciSion structures. It also aims to discover who is empowered and marginalized in
the process.

Reese (1997) highlights the lack of attention to economic development decisions:
“most research has ignored several fundamental questions: who controls such decisions?
what are the relative impacts of external forces and internal actions? and, how are decisions
actually made?” (80). In their book detailing local civic culture, Reese and Rosenfeld (2002)
focus on the roles and influence played by those in formal positions of power, the decision
makers. They recognize the importance of examining who is making these decisions. They

also recognize that the influence of these people goes beyond the formal hierarchy or

42

structure of the organization and has to do with the ideologies underlying decision-making
processes.

Reese and Rosenfeld (2002) delve into the formal governance of economic
development and they focus on decision makers. They do not focus on how local
communities themselves engage with the decision process or their influence in it. In fact,
they noted the difficulty with measuring citizen input: “[i]nput mechanisms can be confused
with actual input or actual influence” (Reese 8: Rosenfeld, 2001b, 305). This study shifts the
focus from how the local civic culture affects those in formal decision-making roles to how
it plays out in the ways that local communities interact with the formal decision process.
Specifically, THE RESEARCHERexamine input mechanisms and their use in order to
understand how communities influence policy decisions. Thus my first research question
asks:

What are the input mechanisms available to local communities in Iron Range

Resources’ economic development decision process?

The shift to looking at local communities and their interactions with the decision
makers is vital to understanding the implications of economic development. Wolman and
Spitzley (1999) noted a need to contrast different actors, including officials, experts, and lay
people, as well as to increase understanding of local actors and their roles in the process.
For this reason, the research focuses on those who make decisions at Iron Range Resources,
including agency administrators, and appointed legislative and citizen board members. It
also explores how local community professionals, business leaders, and community members
interact with IR decision-makers. Since it is important to focus on who makes these

decisions, it is equally vital to investigate who influences them. This examination shows how

43

this influence is structured in these communities. The second research question addresses
these issues:

Who influences the process? What influence do local communities have in

IR decisions?

While examining how local communities interact with formal deciSion-making
processes, it became clear that LCC is based on ideologies which frame how economic
development is conceptualized. Thus, the project examines the underlying ideologies behind
economic development on the Iron Range, which not only structure who makes decisions,
but also who can harness the most resources to influence the process. In doing so, the
research uncovers the ways in which local communities are marginalized and empowered.
The research attends to this with the final research question:

Why are input mechanisms and influence structured in this way?

44

3. METHODS

The overall goal of this research was to examine the influence that community
members have on economic development decisions at Iron Range Resources. This work
takes a qualitative approach because it investigates how decision makers understand their
roles and the roles of community members in the decision processes. Investigating the local
civic culture in economic development entails understanding the inner workings of the
decision process. It requires'examining who uses which mechanisms, in what ways, and why
they use them as they do. Maxwell (1996) notes that one of the strengths of qualitative
research is its unique ability to uncover meaning, what he calls “cognition, affect, intentions
and anything else that can be included in. . .the ‘participants’ perspective” (17). This
participants’ perspective, the perspective Of decision makers at IRR, was precisely what the
project aimed to illuminate. Additionally, qualitative data “emerges from the researcher’s
observations and interviews out in the real world rather than in the laboratory or the
academy” (Patton, 2002, 9-10). Therefore, the research used interviews and observations to
elucidate why participants were involved with the agency.

3.1 DATA COLLECTION

Data were collected from many sources to address the research questions about
public participation at IRR. First, documents on the IRR were collected to understand the
“official story” of the decision process at IRR. These documents included newspaper
articles, scholarly journals, and government publications. Second, the bulk of the empirical
data was collected through in-depth interviews with people engaged in the Iron Range in a
variety of capacities. Third, observations of citizen advisory committee meetings were also
conducted. Finally, public meetings here held to discuss the results with community

members.

45

3.1.1 Document Analysis

First, to understand how Iron Range Resources functions, the project examined the
existing formal as well as grey literature about the agency and region. The research focused
on the historical interactions of IR with local communities. Over 60 public documents
regarding IRR programs, projects, and mandates were reviewed. These included historical
publications by IR and other government agencies as well as countless newspaper articles
from the last decade. Additionally, the data included the past ten years of the agency’s
biannual reports and its website to describe the “Official story” of the agency and how it
functions. Much of this information is presented in Chapter 4.

3.1.2 In-depth Qualitative Interviews

Most the data were collected in in-depth, open-ended interviews with purposely
selected subjects. Forty-eight interviews were conducted with 47 informants in the summer
and fall of 2004, and two follow-up interviews with earlier informants were conducted in the
summer of 2005. These interviews elicited detailed information about how the agency
worked with local communities and how local people were included in the agency’s decision
process. The interviews averaged about one hour each, with a few as short as 35 minutes,
and one that lasted over 1 and 1/2 hours. Before beginning the interviews, informants were
given consent forms that they read and signed to indicate their willingness to participate.
The forms notified informants about their risk in participating, explained the purpose of the
research, and provided contact information for both the researcher and the UCRIHS board
at MSU. See Appendix 7.1.1 for a copy of the informant consent disclosure statement.

The interviews were conducted in four stages, summarized in the following table and

detailed in the following sections.

46

Table 3.1: Data Collection Process

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Collection Stage Purpose Data Collected

Stage 1 To find key informants and learn 4 key interviews
more about the IRR decision
process

Stage 2 To understand the decision- 8 IR high-level staff interviews
making process at IR and the 7 IR board member interviews
thinking of decision makers

Stage 3 To understand the input of 2 interviews with mining-
citizens with a focus on the role dislocation professionals
of citizen advisory committees, 18 PAC member interviews
(using the Partners Advisory 6 local business owner interviews
Committee) and 2 local economic development
To understand the input of local agent interviews
elites from the business and 1 TAC member interview
economic development arenas 2 observations of PAC meetings

Stage 4 To get feedback on preliminary 2 public meetings
findings 2 interviews with former PAC

member informants

 

3.1.2.1 Stage 1—Idenu'1‘jr1hg Key Informants

Field research began with semi-structured topical interviews (Rubin & Rubin, 1995)

with key informants who work at the IR and those “on the outside” who work with it.

Key informants were suggested by Dr. Peter Kakela, a member of the research committee

who has been involved in research on the Iron Range for decades, and a regional venture

capitalist, Al Rogers2 who had partnered with IR on a variety Of development projects and

was deeply familiar with its work. The goal of these interviews was to gain an in-depth

understanding of how the agency functions Officially and the public’s perceptions of the

agency. Key informants included a long-time reporter in the area whose beat included the

IRR, an educator who had been involved with IR re-training projects, a long-time

community leader, and an interested IRR staff member. (See Appendix 7.1.3.1 for a copy of

the interview schedule used for these interviews.)

 

2 This and the names of all other informants are pseudonyms to protect the confidentiality of informants.

47

 

3.1.2.2 Stage 2: Understanding Decision Mala'ng at IRR

With a basic understanding of the official processes and programs of IRR, the
researcher interviewed key decision makers within IRR to understand the decision process.
These were both topical and cultural interviews (Rubin & Rubin, 1995) as the research aimed
to uncover the decision process and structure Of the agency, as well as the ideology
underlying them.

Decision makers were chosen due to their roles at the agency and their perceived
influence at the agency according to the key informants in the previous stage. These
individuals were formally (through their position in the hierarchy) and informally (by their
professional and personal connections) influential in the decision process. First, eight high-
level IR staff were interviewed to examine how they saw their work, what they thought of
public involvement, who they talked to about projects, how they evaluated projects, etc.
These included the commissioner and deputy commissioner, leaders of 3 administrative
units, and one staff member who works directly with funding packages. Additionally, the
research pursued the agency’s historical context by interviewing a recently retired staff
member as well as a former commissioner. The interviews elicited how informants
conceptualized public participation and accountability. When informants repeated the same
information that other informants had given, it became clear that the spectrum of
perspectives had been uncovered. Thus, no further staff interviews were conducted.
Appendix 7.1.3.2 shows the interview schedule used with agency staff.

Second, IRR board members were interviewed to see how they view their role in the
agency’s decision process. The interviews inquired about how they interact with the public
and how they conceptualize public participation in the agency’s work. Nine of the thirteen

board members live in the IRR region. Board members from other parts of the state were

48

not perceived by informants to be influential at the agency and thus they were not
interviewed. Of the nine local board members, two legislators and one citizen were too
occupied to be interviewed, but two citizen board members and four legislative board
members were willing to participate in the research. A former board member3 was also
interviewed. Appendix 7.1.3.3 shows the interview schedule used with board members
(both citizen and legislative).
3.1.2.3 Stage 3—Understanding the Role of Community Members

The third stage of research focused on those community members working directly
with the agency to explore how community members engage with the agency’s work. The
agency interacts with economic development organizations, businesses and financial
partners, and citizen advisory councils (CACS) in its work. Thus, the data included
informants in these groups: 1) members of the Farmers Advisory Committee (PAC), a
citizen advisory council mentioned frequently by agency staff as a place for public input (18
members interviewed); 2) business owners who had received funding from the agency, either
to expand or to relocate to the area (2 interviews), 3) local business owners who had either
been denied help or who had worked with the agency in other capacities, as partners rather
than as recipients (4 interviews), and 4) local economic development agency officials who
had partnered with the agency on projects (2 interviews). Additionally, one local business
owner who had served on the Technical Advisory Committee and was quite involved in

economic development in his community was interviewed.

 

3 The former board member requested he be interviewed by phone. Extensive notes Of his responses were
taken. This write-up was analyzed using the same methods as the transcript data.

49

3.1.2.3.7 PAC members

Since the Partners Advisory Committee was highlighted by agency Officials as an
excellent way for community members to be involved in the process, the research
concentrated on this group. Interviews explored how the members worked with the agency,
how much they knew about the agency’s functioning, why they participated, and how
influential they were. Every member of the PAC was contacted to request an interview.
Only one member declined because she felt She was too new to the PAC. In addition, the
researcher observed two PAC meetings to witness how agency staff interacted with the
participants. The PAC member interview schedule is included in Appendix 7.1.3.4.
3. 7.2. 3.2 Bnrinerr Owners

Because the literature suggests that business perspectives are favored in economic
development, local business owners were also interviewed to examine how they interact with
the agency. IRR provided the names of five successful business projects: 2 local business
owners who had received agency funding agreed to participate in the research. With these
informants, interviews examined how the process functioned for each business, who seemed
most influential in the process, and what about the project made them participate. Also
interviewed were two business owners who had approached the agency but been denied.
With these informants the interviews again explored how the process functioned, who
seemed most influential, and why they participated, but also asked what they thought went
wrong in the process so that they did not receive assistance. Finally, three, other local
business owners were interviewed to understand how the agency is perceived in general by
the business community and whether it is seen as a positive force for helping local business
or a negative one. These informants included a business owner who partnered with the

agency on internal projects, a business owner who had never asked for agency help but was

50

interested in the work of the agency, and another owner who had been on the Technical
Advisory Committee and who was involved with economic development activities. The
interview schedules used with these informants are included in Appendix 7.1.3.5.

3. 7.2. 3.3 Economic Developers

Finally, two economic development officials who partnered with the agency on
recent projects were interviewed. These officials were asked how they saw the process work,
how the agency affected their work in their communities, and how they worked with local
community members. The interview schedule used for these interviews is included in
Appendix 7.1.3.6.
3.1.2.4 Stage 4—Feedback from Infonnants

Because IR is a public agency, and because its meetings are open to the public,
getting public feedback about the findings of this project was vital to ensuring that the voice
of the community would be represented in the data and the final project. During the course
of the research, interviewees wanted to know when they would get to “see” the results and
how they would be able to continue to contribute to the research. In discussions,
community members and the research team determined that public meetings would be an
excellent way to solicit community input as well as to present and verify the results.

In August of 2005, the preliminary results of the research were presented to the
communities in which the research was done. The point of the presentations was to elicit
feedback from the participants regarding the conclusions—a form of member-checking
which is an important element of ensuring interpretive validity. These presentations were
public meetings to which previous subjects were invited personally while public notices were
put in the local papers. The data from these meetings were analyzed in the same way as

other data and were included in the results.

51

3.2 DATA ANALYSIS

Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. First, both documents and interview
transcripts were coded thematically, in consultation with two other researchers. The coding
was revised periodically as new concepts came into play and others were revised or omitted
(Rubin & Rubin, 1995). Second, the data was condensed in continually-revised displays.
These displays allowed the researcher to find similarities and differences in the data across
the informants. This clarified how the IRR decision process works, what input mechanisms
exist, who has influence in the process, and how locals perceive and actualize their role in
agency programs as well as to conceptualize the ideology behind the decision—makers’
perceptions (Miles 8c Huberman, 1994; Rubin & Rubin, 1995).
3.2.1.1 Data Handling

With the exception of one tape-recorded phone interview, the interviews were
recorded for accuracy. The researcher transcribed 12 interviews and 38 others were
transcribed by students at MSU. Each transcript was reviewed for identifying information
and such information was altered in the transcript (changing names, locations, etc.). The
transcripts and the original digital files were stored in password-protected computer files. At
the completion of the research, all media with the subjects’ true identities will be destroyed,
leaving only the public documents, transcripts (with all identifying information removed),
and data write-ups (thesis, publications, etc.). PAC and public meetings were not digitally
recorded. Detailed notes were taken, focusing on how board members and agency
personnel interact. These notes were treated like transcript data in analysis.

3.2.2 Development of Codes

The data software Atlas.ti was used to organize the data collected in 50 interviews,

two observations, and two public meetings with informants. To develop the codes, a sample

52

of the interviews was selected from a variety of respondents. The sample included two IRR
staff members, two board members, one key informant, one workforce professional working
with dislocated miners, one economic developer, two business owners, and two PAC
members. These were read thoroughly and a coding system was developed based on the
themes and concepts they contained regarding the research questions. A coding system is a
way to identify specific concepts in qualitative data. For this project, the researcher created
codes, or identification tags, for the data, defined what the code represented, created rules
for when to apply each tag, and used examples to demonstrate how to use each code or tag.
When new codes were developed, previously coded interviews were re-coded to ensure all
the themes and concepts were uncovered.

Once the coding was developed from this sample, two other researchers used the
same coding structure to code three new interviews. Together, the three researchers refined
and clarified the concepts essential to the research and the codes used to identify evidence of
these concepts. The remaining interviews, observations, and meeting notes were then
coded. These codes continued to evolve, and when major code changes were made, earlier
data were re-coded with the revised coding framework. See Appendix 7.2.1 for Table 7.1, a
table of the final codes and their definitions.

3.2.3 Displays

Displays were used to summarize the data and organize it for analysis. A display is
“a visual format that presents information systematically, so the user can draw valid
conclusions” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, 91) To create a display, the data are analyzed one
interview (or observation) at a time. First, the data are coded—passages are identified by the
themes they contain. Then the codes that are expected to provide evidence for each

research question are identified. Next the passages associated with each code are extracted

53

and analyzed for each interview and a short summary statement is written. Then the
summary statements are used to develop an analysis by various categories of respondents.
For this research, informants were grouped into 5 main groups by their roles. These
informant groups were IRR staff, IRR board members, PAC members, business owners, and
others community leaders. The summaries were organized by group. This is called a
summary display and shown in Table 3.2. This example display was created to clarify the

data regarding the role of the PAC.

54

Table 3.2: PAC Role Summary Display (abbreviated).

 

Respondent

 

P 14: ERyes.rtf 4

ER joined the PAC almost as a continuation of his public career as a mayor
and leader in economic development in his town. He sees the PAC as solely a
tool to get IRR information out to the public. He adds professional experience
as an elected official and feels that he represents his area and that others do
too. He suggests that IRR put something in the paper about who’s on the
committee and where they’re from so people can learn more about the agency.

[14: 60-64] L: What’s the role Of the partners advisory committee?

E: Communications. Well we start at the meetings we usually \
introduce ourselves and our communities, and what’s active in our
communities, and so you may get some networking also maybe Two
Harbors is doing a project and maybe that’ll work up in Babbitt, so it’s
a communication between the partners themselves and iron range
resources. They fill us in on what’s going on and why it’s going on
and the activities of IR and they usually have staff members there

identified

Summary of
>respondent’s
statements on

PAC theme

 

 

that do a pretty good job of presenting it, and you go away with a
pretty good feeling of activity contrary to what some of the media may
say about it, but it’s positive, it works, but through communications
we can bring that home to our communities, 30 if something gets in
the paper we can either we maybe heard about it or we know how to
address it anyway. It’s a good networking 30.

L: Do you have any, do you help the commissioner make decisions or
do you offer that kind of input to the commissioner?

E: Well only as input.

 

[14:90] E: I think you do get some insights that you don’t if you’re not sitting
there facing the public.

 

Raw data
containing the
respondent’s
discussion of

the PAC
theme

 

This type of display ties summaries to the collection of quotes drawn from each

observation or interview. By consolidating all of the information pertinent to the research

question in one place, it allows the researcher to condense the data that are analyzed. From

the summary display, each group’s general perspective on the theme was summarized, and

any discrepancies or differences between informants were noted. Finally, these summaries

were compared across the informant groups to see where the groups were in agreement and

where there were discrepancies. Miles and Huberman (1994) call this a role-ordered matrix.

See Appendix 7.2.2 for the displays used to analyze the data in the results section.

55

 

3.2.4 Analysis for Each Research Question

3.2.4.1 Background Quesu'on: What is the decision process at IRR?

A variety of analytic approaches were used to understand IRR’s official decision

process. First, the written documents were examined for a description of the decision

process. Though the agency’s hierarchy was detailed in the MN Statute 298 and on the

agency’s website, it was not clearly detailed. Therefore, more information was needed from

the interview data. The researcher re-read all the data which had been coded decision procerr,

decision rtmctnre and project process. This was compiled in a consensus display (Table 3.2

following) to determine if there was consensus among the informants about the decision

process and hierarchy, which there was.

Table 3.3: Consensus Disflty: ProEct Process and Decision Structure

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

agency Structure

 

 

 

 

 

PAC members IRR Board IRR Stafi’ (8) Key/ Other
<18) (7) (15)
Outlined a fairly 4/7 (OF, QH, 5/8 (MD, 5/15 (TF; VH,
consistent picture HY, KB) DU1, DU2, CT, WI, DQ)
of projecHJrocess LC, GX, FW)
Outlined
inconsistent
process view
Didn’t know about 1 / 15 (BS)
project process
Didn’t discuss 18* 3/ 7 (T K, JA, 3/ 8 (FS, XJ, 9/ 15 (ZQ,
project process in IZ) EV) VM, SJ, CP,
interview UG, PG, NE,
RI, AR)
Described decision 18* 7 / 7 (T K, OF, 8/ 8 (FS, XJ, 11/ 15 (SJ; TF;
structure of the QH, HY, KB, MD, DU1, VH; VM; ZQ;
agency consistently JA, IZ) DU2, LC, GX, AR, CT, CP,
FW, EV) UG, NE, RI)
Outlined
inconsistent
structure view
Didn’t know about 1/15 (BS)

 

56

 

 

Didn’t discuss 3/15 (WI,
agency structure in DQ, PG)
interview

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* The PAC members described their role in the decision process consistently (see Question
3), but they were not asked about the general decision process or project process at the
agency.

This consensus display Shows how many and which informants out of the total
informants possible in each group were consistent in their responses about the project
process and agency hierarchy. For instance, four of the seven board members interviewed
described the project process in agreement with each other. These four were O. Frich, Q.
Harris, H. Yates, and K. Baxter. No board members differed from this description. In this
way, it was verified that the descriptions of the hierarchy and process are generally agreed
upon by the informants.

With consensus about the agency’s organization, an organization chart (Miles &
Huberman, 1994) was developed to outline the hierarchy of IR decision makers. This is
shown in Chapter 4 (Figure 4.1). To understand the project process, the data coded project
process and decision process were built into an event flow chart (Miles & Huberman, 1994) which
diagrammed the project process and is also in the Chapter 4 (Figure 4.2).
3.2.4.2 Research Question 1: What input mechanisms are available to local

communities in Iron Range Resources’ economic development decision

process?

To uncover input mechanisms, the data regarding the ways in which people were
involved with the agency were examined. This analysis focused especially on where these
passages overlapped with passages identified by the citizens code which denoted data
referring to the role of citizens. Also examined were the networking and accountabiliy coded

data to see where less formal input mechanisms might exist. Using summary displays (see

57

Figure 3.1) of these passages, the mechanisms mentioned by informants were listed. Finally,
to Show how many informants in each informant group had mentioned each mechanism,
another consensus display was created. This display (Table 7.2 in Appendix 7.2.2) showed
not only which mechanisms were mentioned, but also which were most commonly noted.
The display was organized by the type of participation allowed in each. These types of input
mechanisms were added to the event flow detailing the official process (Figure 4.2). This
inclusive event flow chart is Figure 5.1 in Chapter 5.
3.2.4.3 Question 2: Who influences the process? What influence do local
communities have in IRR decisions?

To determine the influence local people have in the process, the data had been coded
for specific examples of influence. Again a summary display summarized each passage.
Then a role-ordered matrix was created similar to the consensus display, Table 3.2 shown
previously. This table, Table 7.3 in Appendix 7.2.2, shows how many examples of influence
there were for each role in the decision process, such as the governor, the commissioner, the
TAC, the board, etc., and which informants mentioned them.

As a sub-question to question 2, the research also examined the specific role and
influence of the PAC itself. The PAC coded data was summarized as shown in Figure 3.1.
These summaries were then organized to a general statement about how each group of
informants views the PAC, noting discrepancies within the informant groups in a consensus
table (Table 7.4 in Appendix 7.2.2). This was the basis Of the PAC section of Chapter 5.
3.2.4.4 Question 3: Why are input mechanisms and influence structured the way they

are?

Question three was answered differently from the interview and observation data

questions. Here, the literature of economic development and public participation interpret

58

what was found at IRR. First, the researcher reviewed the literature summaries and notes
written during the initial reading research phase. These notes were sorted thematically and
theoretically connected to each of the thesis sections, including the literature review, the
context, and the discussion. The discussion data was then linked to the results. These

connections were written in the discussion section of Chapter 5.

3.2.5 Validity

Issues of validity are addressed in a number of ways. To ensure accuracy of the data
itself, each interview transcript was reviewed and clarified with the interviewee to assure that
it was accurate (after it had been transcribed by a transcriber). The coding analysis was also
validated with peer review—when two other researchers collaborated to ensure that the
codes were defined clearly and important information was selected.

Finally, member checking validated the findings in two ways. First, the results of the
interviews were shared with participants and community members at three public meetings
in August 2005. The researcher took notes of these meetings and this community critique
was analyzed and woven into the final research reports (publications and thesis) as well. 2)
The results of the specific PAC data were reviewed in two individual meetings with PAC
leaders also in August 2005 (only these 2 PAC members responded to the request for a
private meeting) and their comments were added to the data, analyzed, and included in the

thesis.

59

4. IRON RANGE RESOURCES: DESCRIPTION
4.1 BRIEF HISTORY OF IRON RANGE RESOURCES

“[N]O one has any illusions there would be anything on the Iron Range today if the
mines disappeared” (Kelleher & Radil, 1999).

Iron Range Resources (IRR) is a regional economic development agency that focuses
on northeastern Minnesota’s Iron Range communities. It is an ideal case to study questions
of how local communities are involved with economic development decisions for a number
of reasons. IRR offers a variety of input mechanisms to community members, which allow
for a detailed examination of how citizens use these mechanisms. Additionally, the agency
exemplifies the current economic development growth ideology in its technocratic process
and organizational structure. Finally, the agency’s budget of $21 million is quite large and its

work is vital tO the 300,000 residents of the Range.

Figure 4.1: Map of Taconite Assistance Area (Iron Range Resources, 2005)

 

 

  
  

Taconite Assistance Area
as defined in

MINN. SlAl'. SECI'ION 27.5.!541

    
 

H firhtfhll 1‘3

 

 

 

 

|ncluded School DISlllClS
M n

 

I .
lob - County

Ill) - Country/Imam:

Alb - my

m . (.an‘ d It. id.

H9 - Nuhw-u KOO-Ili-
JBl - hhSuperiot

ms . Chisholm

(1% -

701 - H I
706 . V‘lrp'n'n
‘l 2 - Mount-in Iron/30M
2H1 - SI. Loni-County
2|“ - EvdnhIG-Ibm
27H - Men-bi Elm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

60

Since the Merritt brothers found the largest U.S. deposit of iron ore, the Mesabi Iron
Range, in 1890, northeastern Minnesota has been dominated by the ore-mining industry
(Goin & Raymond, 1999). The area’s rich, soft high-grade ore was shipped to eastern steel
mills, creating cheap steel that fed America’s industrial boom thrOughout the twentieth
century. Already denuded by the intense white pine timber harvesting of the mid 18008,
“[b]y the turn of the century [1900], the range had been transformed from a sparsely
populated wilderness into an industrialized landscape inhabited by immigrants from almost
every nation of Europe” (Alanen, 1989, 155). Immigrants from Scandinavia and Europe
poured in to fill the dangerous jobs in the mines, in conditions not unlike the industrial
hovels of the early industrializations of Europe and the U.S. (Alanen, 1989). However, these
jobs and the communities they built remain dependent on the global demand for steel. The
market for iron ore, a raw commodity, is cyclical, with demand and supply spikes that vary
dramatically. Employment and fortunes across the Range have varied with the ore economy.
Towns were built near the open pits only to be dismantled and moved as the mining
expanded and then vacated when it contracted (Alanen, 1989). Even the Merritt brothers,
once millionaires, were bankrupted as were dozens of companies and tens of thousands of
families over the years (Alanen, 1989). Early recessions decimated the Merritts, but the
Great Depression brought mining to a standstill in 1932 (Alanen, 1989, 158). The social and
economic effects of this single-resource dependency created a need for economic stability in
the region.

In 1941, legislators feared that the Range was running out of high-grade ore, which
could be fed directly into steel blast furnaces, and that the miners would be once again
jobless. This prompted Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen to create the Department of

Iron Range Resources with a mission to create resource-based jobs in the mining

61

communities (Kelleher & Radil, 1999). One justification for the creation of the Department,
as well as the rest of the taconite tax laws, was the assumption that "extractive industries
such as mining bear some responsibility to the people in the region in which they conduct
their business" (Miller, 1991, 24).

Though northeastern Minnesota had already exhausted the stores of white pine
timber and high-grade ore, the region retained many natural resources. The varied natural
environments attracted tourism, the forests could be renewable resources if properly
managed, and some agricultural crops could also do well in the area—specifically peat and
sod. In 1941, the Department was tasked with developing these alternative resources.

When the Department of Iron Range Resources was created in 1941, the legislature
also redesigned tax law, including lowering taxes on taconite—a harder iron ore of lower
quality that requires processing before it can be used in blast furnaces. This would become
the future of iron mining and northeastern Minnesota (Miller, 1991). The new Department
spent the 19405 researching taconite and other natural resources which, in the fifties and
sixties, developed the commercial taconite industry. The Department capitalized on the
work of Edward Wilson Davis who designed the process to crush the rock and heat it into
taconite pellets that could be fed into the steel furnaces. Over these early decades, the
Department spent over $2.5 million on the research which developed the new taconite
technology (Kelleher & Radil, 1999).

The Department also developed non-ore projects. One of the earliest of these
successes was a reinvestment in forestry. The Department worked with the Department of
Natural Resources (DNR) to replant the forests and to encourage the wood products
industry by providing information and financial assistance to major wood products

producers (Miller, 1991). The Department’s agricultural initiatives were less successful—

62

except for the development of patty-grown wild rice, which created a new industry in
Minnesota (Miller, 1991).

Important political changes occurred in the 19608 and 19705, due to worries that
taconite would run out. Area residents and the Department hoped to diversify the Range
economy to make it less dependent on mining (Kelleher & Radil, 1999). Taconite taxes were
reworked to increase funding for economic development projects and to replace the
decreasing ore taxes. 4 A number of new major funds were also set up to fund the
Department’s work, including the Taconite Area Environmental Protection Fund, and the
Northeastern Minnesota Economic Protection Fund in 1977, both with specific funding
processes and objectives (MN Statute Chapter 298, 2005). The governance of the
Department was altered to include a ten-member board of legislators to authorize funding of
economic and community development projects in the region. The legislation also restricted
funding to parts of the seven counties of northeastern Minnesota home to mining, called the
Taconite Assistance Area (or TAA). This area is shown in Figure 4.1. The Department of
Iron Range Resources became known by the name Of its new directors: the Iron Range
Resources Rehabilitation Board or IRRRB (I-triple R—B). In subsequent years it became the
Iron Range Resources Rehabilitation Agency. No longer a department entirely under the
state government, it morphed into an agency directed by the governor and legislators and
funded by local production taxes rather than state appropriations.

The deep recession of the early eighties made the IRRRB even more important to

Range communities. Between 1980 and 1982, about half of mining employees lost their jobs

 

4 This was not the first time that tax on the mining was used for community and economic development
projects. According to Alanen’s (1989) history of the area, as early as the 19205 “[t]ax levies on the lucrative
mining interests operating within the town [Hibbing] and other settlements generated revenues for relief
projects that employed out-of—work miners during the Off season; athletic and recreational programs, mothers’
clubs, night schools, well—baby clinics, and music and drama organizations; community doctors and nurses; and
above all, school buildings and expanded educational programs” (165).

63

(Kelleher & Radil, 1999). In response to the out-migration and unemployment, IRRRB
focused on rebuilding public infrastructure, including over $60 million invested in local water
and sewer systems and other infrastructure (Kelleher & Radil, 1999). Though tourism had
not been funded until the 197055, the new taconite revenue allowed for new opportunities.
The IRRRB built a historical interpretive center at Ironworld and purchased Giant’s Ridge, a
downhill ski facility—both of which are still owned and operated by the agency. It also
became involved in a number of other tourism projects.

While attempting to bring jobs into the depressed region, IRRRB took a lot of risks
and many projects were perceived as failures by the media and the community. As early as
1985, a report by the Minneapolis 5 tar Tribune “blasted the IRRRB’S expensive ventures” and
media pressure has remained constant (Kelleher & Radil, 1999). A number of innovative
projects failed, as Minnesota Public Radio reported in 1999:

There was what became the poster-project for IRRRB scorn-mongers: the ill-fated
Hibbing chopsticks factory. Lakewood Industries, opened in 1987 with $5 million
in public investment, including more that $3 million industrial-revenue bonds

backed by the IRRRB. It only lasted till 1989. The building then stood empty for
years in Hibbing’s industrial park as mute testimony to a novel idea gone bad.

But according to Gary Lamppa [a former IRRRB commissioner], the idea was
sound. He says the factory’s demise was due to unpredictable factors beyond local
control

Lamppa: ‘That project was probably one of the best projects that IRRRB has
funded in many many years. The guy had a talte-or-pay6 five-year contract of all the
chopsticks he could produce. The problem was that the supplier of the equipment
could not produce A-grade chopsticks. And that was the problem. It was not a
dumb idea. All the mines were closed.’ (Kelleher & Radil, 1999)

The agency contended then, as it does today, that economic development requires

risk-taking and that every venture cannot be successful. Therefore, the IRRRB altered its

 

5 Previously, tourism had not been “designated as a remaining resource under the law as interpreted by the
Minnesota attorney general and was therefore ineligible for IRRRB financial assistance" (Miller, 1991, 12).

6 A take or pay contract is when the buyer agrees to purchase a quantity of goods at the market price—if the
buyer is unwilling or unable to purchase the goods, he or she will pay the producer a previously agreed-upon
fee to make up for not purchasing the product.

64

strategy, choosing to partner with other entities on large projects, pooling smaller amounts
of funding with Others rather than bearing the risks alone (Miller, 1991). Under new
Republican and Independent administrations in the late 803 and 903, and as the economy
began to improve, the agency focused more on mineland reclamation, economic
development to recruit outside business, and local business development (Miller, 1991;
Kelleher & Radil, 1999). Additionally, the board expanded to include three appointed citizen
members.

4.1.1 Current IRR Goals

In response to shrinking budgets and changing priorities, the agency has moved away
from community infrastructure projects and is focusing more narrowly on job creation
projects (Iron Range Resources, 2004a). When Commissioner Layman was appointed in
2003, one of her first actions was to redesign and clarify the goals of the agency (Iron Range
Resources, 2004a). Posted prominently in its lobby, and in the most recent biennial report
on its website, the agency focuses on 4 main goals:

Goal #1: Position the agency to be a leader in developing and implementing a
strategy for the long-term economic viability of the northeastern
Minnesota region.

Goal #2: Sustain the region’s economic base by working with existing businesses to
retain existing jobs and expand to create new jobs.

Goal #3: Diversify the region’s economy by growing new businesses and recruiting
expanding businesses from outside of the area.

Goal #4: Reclaim mining impacted lands to create a diverse regional economic
development resource.

The agency’s development programs are divided into two areas: 1) Business and
Community Development, which includes business recruitment, financing, partnering with

other economic development agencies, among others; and 2) Mining, Energy and Minerals

65

Development, which includes mineland reclamation, technology development, drilling
incentives, tree seedling programs, and others. These programs are centered on “The 4 Tsz”

Taconite: low-grade iron that would eventually take the place of high-grade ore

Timber: forest management that would replenish the region's forest resources and
revitalize the timber industry

Technology: a sysrem of post-secondary and vocational educational institutions to
train and educate the region's people for a variety of careers

Tourism: Proper development of recreational resources could lead to a lucrative
tourism industry. (Iron Range Resources, 2005)

At the same time, Commissioner Layman simplified the agency’s name: though still
called the IRRRB by statute, the agency’s logo is now “Iron Range Resources” or IR
(which will be used throughout this paper to refer to the agency itself).

IR is a semi-autonomous, public agency outside the general purpose bureaucracy—
it is not an executive agency in state government, such as the DNR. It is not a state agency,
nor is it a legislative committee; it is a hybrid of bOth. The commissioner is appointed by the
governor and the IRR board is composed of State legislators. The agency follows Wolman
and Spitzley’s (1999, 252, emphasis added)second model: it is “a 5em¢ublie ageng that, while
created [9} legislative act, is not part of the Structure of the general purpose government and has
some degree of autonomy.” The structure of IR is detailed in Minnesota statute 298.22. The
statute outlines the role and appointments of the commissioner and the board members. It
also outlines the specific requirements for approvals for spending the funds that IRR
administers.

4.2 IRR’S DECISION STRUCTURE
The decision process at Iron Range Resources is complex and there are many

decision makers involved at various levels. Figure 4.2 summarizes the official view of

66

decision making at IRR. This figure was compiled from 1) agency documents and 2)
interviews with agency staff and board members, all of whom concurred with this summary.

4.2.1 Governor

The governor appoints the commissioner and one citizen board member. Because
the governor appoints the commissioner, he can direct her actions. Since the governor’s
office disburses funds to the agency, the governor is also the final decision-maker for
funding specific projects.

4.2.2 Commissioner

The commissioner is appointed by and responsible to the governor. She oversees
the agency’s budget, directs its programs, and designs its goals. The commissioner also
follows the process for funding specific projects closely. Not only does she decide whether
to recommend board-approved projects to the governor, she also works with IR staff
throughout the project process, determining whether or not a project even makes it to the
board. One staff member explained:

The commissioner. . .decides to bring a project forward or not. . .. Typically, [the
staff] is keeping the commissioner abreast of what’s going on. If she just doesn’t
like something. . . [she can say] ‘let’s cool it, tell them thanks but no thanks.’ That
certainly can happen. (P116: 61)

67

 

 

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68

4.2.3 Iron Range Resources Board

The IR board is a unique governing body made up of 10 legislators (5 state
senators, 5 state representatives) and 3 appointed citizen members. It meets about four
times a year to vote on project proposals. The legislators are appointed by the leaders of
state legislative bodies (the State Senate Majority Leader and the State House Speaker) for
two-year terms and a minimum of 6 of them must have at least 50 percent of their
constituency within the TAA. The three citizens are appointed (one each) by the governor,
the Speaker of the House, and the Senate Majority Leader. For most of the agency’s funds,
the board must approve a project for it to receive funding.

The board members also participate in liaison committees. liaison committees are
smaller groups of board members who work with IR staff on projects defined by specific
sectors.7 These committees learn about projects and programs before they come to a board
meeting. They do not vote on projects, but they are involved in the planning stages and

allow the board to be aware of projects in the early Stages of development.

4.2.4 IRR Staff

IRR staff work with businesses, local economic development agencies, financers and
Other partners to create project packages. The staff is comprised of professionals who are
considered economic development experts. These professionals recruit businesses from
outside the region as well as work with businesses in the region on issues of expansion and
retention. Staff members collaborate with board members on the liaison committees. They

also run IRR-owned tourism facilities: Ironworld Heritage Center, a historical site detailing

 

7 During the summer of 2004, liaison committees included Economic Development, Facilities 8: Tourism,
Human Resources, Marketing & Communication, Mineland Reclamation, Mining & Energy, and Revenue
Sources. Each liaison group has a chair and 5 members, all from the board, and one IRR staff contact.

69

the mining history of the region, and Giant’s Ridge Golf and Ski Resort. Staff members are
state employees.

4.2.5 Citizen Advisory Committees

There are a number of citizen advisory committees at IRR. Two have major roles in
the decision process, the Technical Advisory Committee, and the Partners Advisory
Committee.
4.2.5.1 Technical Assistance Committee

The Technical Advisory Committee (T AC) is focused solely on the agency’s project
funding packages. This committee is made up of private industry experts (bankers, business
leaders, etc.) and it examines the precise terms of a project to ensure that it is fiscally sound.
The TAC can offer suggestions and changes. The project must be approved by the TAC to
move to the board for approval.
4.2.5.2 Partners Advisory Committee

The Partners Advisory Committee (PAC) is a board of 20 community members who
meet with the commissioner every two months. They learn about agency programs and
goals and inform the commissioner about happenings in their local communities. IRR
(2004b) describes their role:

The Partners Advisory Committee is established to enhance communication

between the Office of the Commissioner of Iron Range Resources and the residents

of the Taconite Assistance Area. Its purpose is to act as an informal sounding

board to the Commissioner and provide feedback and input from a

citizen/ stakeholder's perspective.

During meetings, PAC members learn about IRR programs and projects, usually
through presentations by IR staff, and then take turns sharing what economic issues they

think are most pressing in their communities. According to staff and PAC member

interviews, the PAC members share local concerns with the commissioner and get

70

suggestions from other PAC members. When there are vacancies on the PAC, the agency
runs notices in the local papers (see Appendix 7.5 for the ad run in early 2004) and the
commissioner and her staff choose new members out of those who respond. PAC members
serve up to 2 terms of 3 years each, and represent a diversity of Community locations,
professional backgrounds, and genders. During this research project, about one-third of the
PAC members had been chosen by this commissioner and two-thirds remained from
previous commissioners.

Similar to the other community advisory committees at IRR, the PAC clearly fits into
the characteristics for a typical CAC according to Renn et al. (1995a). Its organization is
non-hierarchical (the chair is elected by the group annually and serves only to construct the
meeting agendas); its charge is determined by the IRR (to serve as a sounding board for the
commissioner); its members are hand-picked by the commissioner and are generally from
the same elite class (professionals, educators, etc.) as the agency officials; members choose
the agenda of their meetings, which are not open to the public; and members are educated
by the agency about agency programs and depend on IR for all the information they
receive.
4.2.5.3 Other Citizen Advisory Committees

Other CACS, called taskforces and advisory boards at IRR, deal with specific
programs or projects, such as the Ironworld Task Force and the Do I.T. Council. The
members of these groups are community members appointed by IR staff and sometimes
the commissioner. These groups have specific tasks, such as researching the possibility of
changing the organization and management of Ironworld (for the first) or directing the

Information Technology program (the latter).

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4.3 PROJECT PROCESS

Though there is no formally documented project process, all of the people
interviewed at the agency agreed that the typical project goes through a process illustrated in
Figure 4.3. Though there are exceptions, most projects begin at the IRR staff level. Under
the guidance of the commissioner, the staff works with community partners, including local
governments, local economic development agencies, banks, and private financers, to create a
project funding package. If the project falls under one of the liaison committee areas, that
committee will also work with the staff to prepare a project package, a plan of
implementation and funding to bring the project into being. The prepared package is then
brought to the TAC where commissioner-appointed business and banking experts review it,
suggest changes, and recommend approval or disapproval. An approved project is put on
the next IRR Board agenda where the principals present the project, the board asks
questions, and the project is again either approved or not approved. If approved, the
commissioner then sends the project details to the governor who disburses funding to the
IRR. Finally, the project goes back to the IRR staff who manage the funding of the project

and monitor its implementation to assure that partners are meeting their goals.

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4.4 CONCLUSION

IR is a semi-autonomous government agency. It is not a department in the state or
county or city governments but it is run by the executive and legislative branches. This is an
example of Wolman and Spitzley’s (Wolman & Spitzley, 1999) second model of an economic
development agency. It is also a professional and elite agency (Reese & Rosenfeld, 2002),
one of the prevailing types of agencies in the economic development literature. Because it is
Similar to the economic development agencies discussed in the literature, it is an excellent
case to examine how local communities can interact with or affect the distanced decision
process so common in economic development today. The citizen advisory committees at
the IRR also offer the opportunity to study closely how these bodies allow local access to

decision makers.

74

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the research findings. Chapter 4 described the IRR’S
organizational structure and decision process for approving projects. This work describes
the official decision structure at IRR, part of the IRR’s local civic culture, but does not reveal
how local communities or their citizens are engaged with IR decisions. As such, this
project examines first the input mechanisms available to community members at IRR Input
mechanisms are the ways in which local community members or citizens may participate in
IR decisions. For this research, community members are those who live and work in the
IRR’s region but are not employed by IR or on the board. Recall, however, that the
existence of input mechanisms does not necessarily mean that community members have
any influence in the decision process (Reese & Rosenfeld, 2002). Thus, the second part of
this chapter focuses on influence. It examines first who is influential at IRR to complete the
understanding of the agency’s local civic culture and second the influence of community
members themselves to expand beyond the decision-makers. Finally, the data reveal the
underlying ideologies that frame economic development at IR and suggest how these
ideologies determine input mechanisms and community influence.

5.1 WHAT INPUT MECHANISMS ARE AVAILABLE TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES IN IRON
RANGE RESOURCES, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DECISION PROCESS?

This section examines the various input mechanisms that are available to local
communities to participate in IR decisions. Interviews with IR staff and board members
and community members revealed three categories of input mechanisms: 1) insider
mechanisms, the opportunities to formally participate in IR processes as an insider at the
agency; 2) promotion mechanisms, the opportunities to bring project ideas to the IR; and

3) commentary mechanisms, the opportunities to offer comments on agency projects and

75

programs. Figure 5.1 illustrates where these mechanisms allow participation in the IRR
project process. The top dark oval represents opportunities to participate in formal IRR
bodies. Examples include the Technical Advisory Committee (T AC) and other community
advisory committees such as the PAC and the Do I.T. board. The lower grey oval
represents opportunities for local economic development professionals and private
entrepreneurs to propose projects in their communities. In contrast to the insider roles
described previously, promoters are involved as IRR partners, but they do not participate as
members of official IRR bodies. They may work with IR in their official capacities (i.e.
local developers) or as private citizens (i.e. local business owners). Finally, the white oval
represents opportunities for community members to comment on proposed projects using
public meetings and informal communication avenues with the agency’s decision makers.
These are ad hoc opportunities and can involve interaction with a number of IR contacts.

Each mechanism is described in the following section.

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5.1.1 Insider Mechanisms: Locals Participate in IR Bodies

One way that local communities can participate in IR decisions is as members of
official IRR bodies. Community members can join a variety of IR advisory committees
and boards, what Renn et al. (1995a), call community advisory Committees (CACS). A CAC
is a group of community members assembled by an agency to discuss agency issues and
assist or advise the agency. At IRR, the Technical Advisory Committee (T AC) functions as a
CAC. Interviews with agency executives and board members reveal that this is the only
CAC in which the community members have official responsibility in the project planning
process. TAC members are appointed by IR staff due to their business and financial
expertise and are usually banking or business professionals.

Other CACS also exist at IRR. Some are appointed for specific projects whereby
they have a short term assignment that is accomplished. For instance, the Ironworld Task
Force was tasked to examine and recommend a new management structure for Ironworld
and they had approximately six months of regular meetings in which to make their
recommendations (Commissioner's Task Force on Ironworld, 2004). Others have more
long-term responsibilities, with members serving specified terms. The Do I.T. Advisory
Board functions in this way, convening to assist the Information Technology program on a
regular basis. In the same way, the Partner’s Advisory Committee (PAC) consists of
appointed community members that advise the commissioner directly. All of these CACS
are official IRR bodies and they function as part of the agency’s decision process. However,
only the TAC holds any legal responsibility for making program decisions.

5.1.2 Promotion Mechanisms: Promoting Projects as an IR Outsider

Community members may also participate in IR dealings by proposing projects to

the agency. In-depth interviews reveal that government officials and economic development

78

professionals from the region bring ideas to the agency and work with IR staff to create
projects. These economic developers are those who work specifically in a community to
manage economic development planning and programs. IRR staff may also approach
community officials to help recruit new businesses to their communities. Additionally,
business owners may engage with the agency in this way.

In general, average community members, those who do not hold leadership roles,
were not identified as project promoters in interviews. However, an IR executive
suggested that they can function as informal and passive promoters of their communities.

[1"]he more positive your citizens are, the better success you’re going to have, and
that could be the person at the gas station who’s friendly when they’re pouring you
your cup of coffee in the morning, it could be anything (PZ7z450).

Since only one informant suggested that average community members can promote
their communities, this is not a commonly perceived role for them. Thus, the data indicate
that community members are not actually involved as promoters and do not gain access to
the agency through this means. Rather, it is community officials who use IRR promotion
mechanisms.

5.1.3 Commentary Mechanisms: Reacting to IRR Decisions

The most common means identified for community members to be involved in IR
work was through commentary mechanisms. Since IR is a public agency, community
members have opportunities to react and respond to IR decisions. When asked how
community members are involved, informants most often stated that community members
can call IRR decision makers or public officials with their concerns. IRR decision-makers
are those at the agency who are officially tasked with determining economic development
programs, like board members and the commissioner. For instance, a community member

may call her mayor to learn about a project in her town while another calls his legislative

79

representative on the board. Other commentary mechanisms were mentioned, but by only a
few informants. These include speaking during open floor time at board meetings or other
public forums, contacting the agency staff or commissioner directly in the office, contacting
the governor, or using personal relationships with staff members, board members, or other
decision makers outside of the office to express one’s views.

When an agency executive was specifically asked for all the ways that people can
participate, he replied “I just really think that if you want to talk to Iron Range Resources
there’s just, there’s virtually an unlimited. . .number of avenues to do so” (Pl3: 153).8 He
listed most of the options above. However, board members responding to the same
question typically said that their constituents contact them. In-depth interviews revealed that
board members perceive themselves as recipients of public opinions and six other
informants agreed that it was common to contact board members about IRR projects and

issues.

 

3 This citation references the data transcript. P13 refers to the 13th transcript, and 153 is the paragraph in the
originally transcript that contains the quoted passage. All other transcript data passages will be referenced in
the same manner.

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5.2 WHO INFLUENCES THE PROCESS?

The data show that community members can access IRR’S decision process using
three types of input mechanisms: insider, promotion, and commentary mechanisms
described in Section 5.1. However, the existence of input mechanisms and a description of
the official structure and process are not enough for the study to understand who is
influential at the agency. This is because the purposes and uses of input mechanisms
determine how influential participants are (Reese & Rosenfeld, 2001b; Cornwall, 2003;
Sullivan, 2004). These issues of influence are addressed in section 5.2. First, the interview
data reveal patterns of influence for both IRR insiders and those who work with the agency (
section 5.2.1). Second, the data also Show how community members specifically have
influence at IRR (section 5.2.2).

5.2.1 Who is Influential: Expected Influence

Interviews with IR staff and board members revealed that most projects at IRR
follow the decision process detailed in Chapter 4. Therefore, people with the most influence
at the agency are those who are responsible for making decisions about the agency and its
programs. The hierarchy of influence follows the Structure outlined in Figure 4.1, flowing
from the governor to the commissioner and the board, to the TAC, to the IRR staff. All of
these actors are influential due to their role in the agency’s structure, and therefore their
formal responsibilities. Because this influence is expected with their roles, it is called averted
iigf/uence.

The commissioner, for example is influential to her position in the IRR’S hierarchy.
The commissioner has influence through her role as the head of the agency. She provides

final approval for projects and can veto them at any point in the decision process. Therefore

81

she determines which projects make it through the initial stages and reach the board
approval stage.

Additionally, the commissioner’s role includes her ability to direct the overall focus
of the IRR. Though the agency has evolved throughout its long history, this commissioner
has clearly focused on business recruitment and expansion as the primary goal of the agency.
These respondents noted that since the commissioner changes with every new
administration (and sometimes more often), the agency’s focus can also change often (PG:
153; P10: 25; P20: 31). This can cause frustration within the agency as a new commissioner
takes time to settle into the job. According to one informant, community members feel as
though work is Slowed by the transition from one administration to another (P6: 153). The
data Show that community members, board members, and Staff do not have the formal
power to determine the agency’s goals. This is entirely within the purview of the
commissioner. The commissioner’s extensive expected influence, then, includes her ability
to design the goals and focus of the agency, to oversee the project process, and to approve
funding.
5.2.1.1 Balance of Power

The commissioner’s expected influence is limited by the influence of other decision
makers at IRR. The organizational Structure of IR balances decision making across the
executive and legislative branches of government. The commissioner and governor direct
the agency, but the legislative board also controls project funding, the budget, and other
decisions. Because the board and the commissioner both have expected influence to
approve projects, it can be unclear which is more influential. One Staff member noted “the
power really is vested in the executive branch. Now you talk to board members and they

might kind of debate that a little bit, but um the CEO, if you will, of the organization is the

82

commissioner, who’s appointed by the governor” (1’12: 53). However, board members
highlighted the power of the board in directing the agency. One board member suggested
that even though the commissioner defines its goals, the board can alter the agency’s budget
to fund the areas they think are most vital (P25). In effect, the board and the commissioner
must collaborate to develop IRR projects and programs.

The competing influences of these decision makers can cause significant conflict
between the board and the commissioner when they disagree on the agency’s projects or
goals. A Minnesota Public Radio (Kelleher & Radil, 1999) report noted that the conflict
could flare at times and damage the reputation of the agency and the area’s legislators who
are board members. The report cited former board member Dougjohnson who admitted
that the publicity over conflict at the agency “does hurt us somewhat in recruitment and in
the image of our agency.” (Kelleher & Radil, 1999). More recently, a community informant
stated, one board member was so angry with the commissioner that in a public meeting he
stood on a table and lectured her (P42: 63-69).

The conflict between the commissioner and the board can also flare because of
partisan differences between the commissioner and the board. In the summer of 2004, the
board was comprised mostly of politicians for the Democratic Farmer Labor Party (the
Minnesota Democratic Party). By contrast, the governor, and by association his
commissioner, were Republicans. Partisan conflict was evident in six interviews (P16: 146,
154; P23: 47; P33: 50; P35: 57; P40: 60; P52: 128). A former commissioner highlighted the
problem:

I think when you have a board that’s Democratic basically, and you have a
commissioner that’s Republican, if things go wrong locally and [community
members] complain to the board, who are [board members] going to blame? The
commissioner. And if the commissioner receives a criticism, who’s she going to
blame? The board. And it’s not a good situation I don’t think. It worked better

83

[when the governor was of the same party] than it [does] now. I don’t think it’s
working very well.” (PSZ: 136)

However, a former board member suggested that even though conflict could be a serious
problem, "overall, when push comes to shove, they have made the needed compromises to
get the job done” (P46: 25). His positive comment was the only comment on overcoming
partisan conflict in the interviews. Twenty-four other informants were concerned about this
conflict and the reputation it creates.

5.2. 1.2 Expected Influence Assists Some Projects

While most projects follow the usual process, some get help from those with formal
influence over the process. At times, the governor or a board member might overrule the
usual process. While this may disrupt the process occasionally, the ability of those decision
makers to guide the process is consistent with their role in the IRR hierarchy. Two examples
from the interviews exemplify this concept.

The commissioner is very influential because she can veto any project that the board
approves. She is, however, reliant upon the governor because the governor’s expected
influence, as executive of the state, includes appointing, and thus instructing, the
commissioner. Recently, the governor overturned the commissioner’s decision a project.
IRR helped Warner Brothers to film a recent movie, Nari/9 County, on the Iron Range by
contacting the mining companies for locations and finding contractors in the area.
However, the commissioner was opposed to funding a rebate on supplies the company
purchased locally. Though the governor initially supported the commissioner’s position,
board members put it on a board agenda and voted 8-4 to give a 10% rebate to Warner
Brothers on supplies purchased locally for filming. Since the commissioner continued to

refuse funding, Warner Brothers went directly to the governor. Governor Pawlenti relented,

instructing the IRR to fund a 10% rebate up to $200,000. If Warner Brothers had not been

84

successful with the governor, however, the commissioner’s decision would have stood. This
example clearly demonstrates that both the commissioner’s and the governor’s influence are
based on their formal roles in the agency’s decision process. They direct the agency and the
governor may exert his formal influence over the commissioner.

Similarly, board members have used their expected influence to help move projects
through the process. One informant offered a telling example that suggests the power of the
board can take precedence over the expertise of the professionals on the agency’s staff.
Terry Fitzgerald, a local business owner, discussed one of the challenges he faced with
getting a building loan package from the IRR.

Fitzgerald (F): We called our liaison person [on the IRR staff] and I said “Jim [name
changed], what’s going on? You’ve made all these demands of us. Well let me make
a demand of you, I would like to have a firm date. When are we going to get some
sort of decision? We want to move forward here.” So he got all in a tizzy and wrote
us a letter that said, “Dear Terry, we’re no longer interested in dealing with

you.”. . .So I called one of the board members, Steve. . .who I knew and who was a
business person and I said “look here’s what’s happening...” And I can remember
this like yesterday because he went “uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, I’ll look into it.”

Click. Well low and behold in two days the train was back on the track, the guy who
wrote me the nasty letter apologized, the head of the IRR came over and took us
out to lunch, and everything was going again, everything was moving forward, so we
got the attention that we needed but only by really being a squeaky wheel. And I
don’t particularly care to do that, but I know how to do it, and it’s a negative effort
and I try to refrain from ever going down those paths, sometimes it’s necessary.

Researcher (R): So unfortunately in this case you had to call on the guy with the
political clout to make, to push it through.

F: Had to, to make it happen. To push it through, yeah. (1345:56-60)

This example was not discussed with agency staff members, and therefore the agency’s
perspective was not ascertained. This example suggests that having connections to the
board is helpful to receive IRR funding. More importantly, it reaffirms that the board is
much more powerful than the staff. Recall that in Chapter 4, it was noted that the staff are
considered to be economic development experts while the board members are not. This is

precisely what Dewar (1986) was concerned with in her critique of the IRR—she felt that the

85

power of the board overwhelmed the economic analysis and expertise of the professional
staff. What the data show here is that those in upper levels of the hierarchy, such as the
governor or board members, have more influence than those lower down due to their
positions in the hierarchy itself. This is expected from an examination of the IRR
organizational structure. However, some higher—level decision makers who are not experts
overrule lower level ones with technical knowledge. The governor, board members, and the
commissioners are able to overrule IRR staff because they are elites: they are elevated by
their positions in the hierarchy and have more influence than the staff members in the
process. Similarly, IRR staff members, by virtue of their expertise, are elevated above

average community members.

5.2.2 Who Is Influential: Extraordinary Influence

In addition to the influence of those in the decision structure, the data also show that
some have more influence than would be expected by their role at IRR These people are
called “extraordinarily influential” and this type of influence is referred to as “extraordinary.”
Due to their elite status, both at the IR and in other contexts, these extraordinary
influencers are able to leverage power from outside the agency in order to affect the agency’s
decision process. Thus, elites matter in the process because they have greater opportunities
to influence IRR decisions than other people. However, while these examples demonstrate
this extraordinary influence, they were rare enough to suggest that most projects go through
the usual process without benefit of extraordinary support.
5.2.2.1 Leveraging Outside Power: Board Members and Other Politicians

Nine informants highlighted the ability of some elected board members to leverage
other positions of power to gain and maintain influence at IRR. Board members are

empowered through dual roles. Not only are they officially tasked with approving IRR’s

86

budget and individual projects, which is their expected influence, but they are also politicians
with political responsibilities to allocate state resources. This provides them with additional
financial and networking power that can be leveraged to gain advantage on the IRR board.
This is their extraordinary influence. Interviews revealed that high profile politicians have
brought business to the region by capitalizing on political favors. Some board members are
exceptionally influential due to their role within the state capitol. These roles allow them to
influence the owners of companies, other board members, and the governor. They use this
influence to assist some projects and obstruct others. Finally, they are able to leverage their
IR and capitol power to undermine their challengers in the TAA communities and to
protect the formal decision structure which empowers them.

Nine informants suggest that the most influential decision makers at IRR are
politicians who have political connections to businesses. Two board members from the
area, Jake Anders and Tom Kulich (pseudonyms), leveraged their power as regulators of the
state health care industry to open call centers for Delta Dental, a dental health insurance
company, in the TAA. An informant involved in the industry noted:

Jake Anders [board member] brought Delta Dental up here basically because he was
owed a debt by the CEO of Delta Dental. Delta Dental, we’ve been on them
steadily because they break the law consistently the way they operate. . .This was a
little way to appease Jake, create some jobs and getJake off their back for a little
while. But IRRRB was instrumental in it because Jake was the leader, he was on the
board, is still on the board, it was a pet project of his and Tom Kulich [board
member].” (P19: 144)

This is an excellent example of how politicians can leverage power within the State legislature
to champion a pet project. Here, Anders and Kulich used their legislative roles as regulators
of the health industry to coerce9 a company into moving to the area. In addition, as board

members, they worked as insiders to help get it approved.

 

9 Coercive power is based on one’s control of a resource (in this case, the health care regulations) to influence
another (Delta Dental) who depends on that resource (W artenberg, 1991).

87

Equally revealing, politicians who are not even IRR board members are also able to
use their political power to influence IRR’s economic development process. A US senator
from the Iron Range promoted the Northwest Airlines reservations center in Chisholm.
This senator was on the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation which regulates the airline industry (P45: 200-226, P8: 17). He used this
power to coerce the company to build the reservations center near his hometown.
Additionally, he was able to use his power as a decision maker at IRR to influence the agency
to favor this project. His leverage in DC. increased his leverage as a promoter in the IRR
process. In this case, the influential politician was not part of the official IRR decision
process: he held no position within the IRR. However, according to one informant, he
negotiated with the IRR staff and board to ensure that the project received IRR funding.

This extraordinary influence is not always used to bring in businesses to local
communities. In another example, Pete Craven, an economic developer on the PAC, said
thatJake Anders used his IRR influence to veto a project outside of Anders’ congressional
district. The TAA encompasses seven counties and Anders refused to support a project that
would be about 60 miles from his district.

“He DA], basically through the grapevine, killed that project by saying "we’ll give

you the money but you’re going to locate it to the east. If you’re going to locate it

[on the west side] it’s gone, we’re not going to do it." So he personally killed that

project, and if we get [a new business] here, in [my town on the west side of the

Range], that helps Hibbing, Virginia, Eveleth, [on the east] because a lot of those

people are going to drive here and work. And we have a lot of people that drive to

the mines and work. There’s a lot of people in Virginia/Hibbing that work [in my

town]! So it doesn’t matter, I mean if they wanted to build it in Eveleth that’d be

great too, people are going to drive through [my town] to shop and Stuff like that,
and people from here will work there. . .but he killed that project, yep. (P38: 78)

Though it was not possible to ask Anders about this directly, in his interview he did say that
he thinks the IRR money Should only be spent in his district rather than across the TAA

region. He said that the tax dollars are “my constituents’ money” and “that’s my job” to

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veto projects elsewhere, so it is reasonable that he would use his influence to favor projects
in his district only. In this case, there was no one on the board representing the western
district and no other board members challenged him. Additionally, since the west side
project was supported by professional economic developers in’the area, the example
suggests that the work of highly influential insiders can overshadow the needs and desires of
the community members, i.e. Craven, who promote projects.
5.2.2.2 Dominau'ng Community Members to Maintain Influence

There is another side to the dual roles that the board members have. Not only can
board members leverage their power at the capitol to affect IRR decisions, but also they can
use their IRR role to maintain their elected positions and restrict community opposition.
One long-time IRR staff member, Frank Simpson (pseudonym), noted that some board
members have used IRR development funding to coerce local community leaders.

Simpson (8): I mean can you imagine if you’re a local elected official [who is a
board member] and. . .you have anywhere from 2 to 5-6-7-8-9 million dollars a year
to provide your constituency?

Researcher (R): You’d stay in office for a while wouldn’t you?

S: Absolutely. . ..I talked to the community officials and can you imagine how you’d
be if you were a mayor and you don’t agree with something [that your representative
is doing]? But to speak out against that, how you’d jeopardize your piece of the pie,
so to speak?

R: Right.

S: 80 our local elected officials [mayors, economic developers, etc.] were very, very
apprehensive about being controversial or being on a cutting edge or jumping in
with change simply because they were afraid if they made their elected officials [who
were board members] upset in some way then they [the local community] would be
regarded unfavorably when they put in their grant requests. So it really caused. . .a
unique political system that we have up here, where a lot of our legislators. . .would
dictate to community officials what they think should happen. Of course they’ll
deny this up and down, they’d say there’s nothing political about this, but the reality
of the Situation is exactly the opposite. (P16: 48-56)

He continued that this is changing slightly as communities are now usually required

to come up with a portion of project funds to supplement the IRR funds. He suggested that

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because local communities are becoming less dependent on IR funds, they have gained
some independence from the influence of the board members.

Simpson also stated that the board members have resisted community advisory
committees (CACS) which might threaten their own deciSion—making influence. He critiques
the usefulness of IR CACS specifically because they can easily be disbanded by those in
power.

There’s been advisory boards put together [by the IRR] . . .that try to encourage
[community] involvement [in IR decisions]. But there’s always that resistance you
have from the government Side, [the board members think] that “we have the
money and we should be the ones that make decisions” so although there’s a lot of
well-educated people who realize the importance [of community involvement], they
[the board] still have that resistance to really letting them [the community] take a
lead. . ..

Those politicians on that board have an issue of control and when they see control
slipping, when they see control going to someplace else [like an advisory council]
they resist it tremendously.

We’ve formed something that’s called the Iron Range Economic Alliance, which
brought together all the local community development people, [and] economic
development people to talk about regional issues and bring in the [community]—
[the IRR] board was vehement against that, year after year they denied funding and
we just funded it anyway. (P16: 102-112)

Simpson’s example demonstrates that the board members can use their influence to
undermine public participation in the process. When he states “we just funded it anyway,”
he highlights that the commissioner’s ability to fund some projects allows her to balance the
board’s influence.

What is demonstrated in these examples is the board members’ ability to bolster their
own influence in a variety of ways. With their political power, board members who are also
state legislators can influence the IRR’S financing decisions. However, they also have the
power as legislators to create the structure that keeps them influential. They designed the
agency hierarchy from which they receive their expected influence. By locating projects in

their home districts, they increase their local influence. This power to help allocate IR

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funds can also disempower community leaders in their home communities as board
members have so much influence over where projects can be located, they undermine any
community leaders who may challenge them. Finally, if an IR community advisory
committee does appear threatening to their power, they can vote to disband it or deny it
funding, effectively Silencing dissent.
5.2.2.3 Challenges ofElite-dominated Programs

The efficiency of elite-dominated decisions, that is decision processes controlled by
those people elevated socially, was a concern to three informants. Due to the power
difference between staff and board members, these informants, including a local business
owner, a PAC member, and a former staff member, suggested that projects that get funded
due to political support don’t always have a strong business plan. In a public meeting, a
former IRR employee stated that those projects with good business plans went through the
agency staff, but that those with weak business plans often used board support to avoid the
staff scrutiny. A local business owner summed up his frustration with this power imbalance:

If we wanted to get some money would we go to Steve, one of the staff members
who actually knows what he’s doing, or would we want to grab our little buddy Irvin
Zain [board member] and shake him down for the money? Well you go to Zain
because he’s the one that can make it happen, and that’s really backwards, it’s not a
good business plan. (P45: 314)

Another informant, a PAC member, suggested that the problem with the influence
of the board is that they support projects that end up failing.

I think they [the agency staff] get pushed by the board, by local interests into some
decisions, like I say they’ve been scammed a few times, I think they’ve made some
decisions that have turned out to be poor ones [because of political pressure]. (P18:

132)

Again, the data suggest that board members are highly influential due to their dual

roles and that their influence can overcome the technical expertise of the staff.

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In answer to the first part of this research question, the data Show that elites are
influential in the decision process at IRR. What the data reveal is that the official decision
process at IRR elevates some decision makers above others and that these elites have more
influence than those at the bottom of the hierarchy. This is not surprising. What is
surprising is the finding that some elites can capitalize on dual roles and outside resources to
affect the agency more than would be expected from the decision hierarchy. Again, while
approval for most projects follows the official process, examples of extraordinary influence
by an elite few demonstrates that the local civic culture in IR decisions privileges elites.
These elites can use their extraordinary influence to dominate local communities as well.

5.3 WHAT INFLUENCE DO LOCAL COMMUNITIES HAVE IN IRR DECISIONS?

5.3.1 Local Influence: Community Elites

The results from the previous section suggest that elites dominate the official
process. As such, this section examines whether or not local communities have influence at
the agency. The data presented here demonstrate that local community elites, rather than
non-elite community members, have influence at the agency.

Community members are not a heterogeneous group. In interviews, community
members were identified by their position in the community. These people could be divided
into community elites and non-elites. Community elites refer to those who are elevated in
the community, and include professional economic developers, community leaders,
governing officials, and even business owners. These elites were most frequently mentioned
by informants as working with IR. No one suggested that other community members,
those who were not professionally interested in the work of IRR, were involved with the

agency. In interviews, non-elites were referred to as “Average Joe Iron Ranger” or “average

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community members” and included typical range residents such as miners, parents, retired
people, and area workers.

Five informants outside of the IRR supported the idea that those who are able to
partner with the agency, such as community officials and local’business owners, are
influential. In general, these informants view community elites as promoters and, therefore,
gateways to the agency. One business owner stated that the successful relocation of his
business to the TAA from Minneapolis was possible only because of the help he got from
his town’s economic development agent in navigating the IRR process (PSlz56). Due to
their promotion opportunities, community elites have more influence than other community
members at IRR. Community leaders, government officials, and economic developers are
more closely connected to the agency, as promoters who are involved in the planning and
negotiating of projects, than other community members who have only the ability to
comment on IR projects.

Frank Simpson, a former IRR Staff member supports the idea that IRR partners with
community elites, those with professional abilities that fit the agency’s work. He notes:

We’ve formed something that’s called the Iron Range Economic Alliance, which
brought together all the local community development people, [and] economic

development people to talk about regional issues and bring in the [community].
(P16: 102)

As revealed in section 5.1, IRR partners are community officials, economic
development agents, and local business owners. These elites have influence by virtue of
their official positions within the community that allow them to be included in some IRR

ventures. This leaves the issue of non-elite community members: what influence do they

have at IR?

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5.3.2 Local Influence: Non-elites

The analysis of the input mechanisms for community members at the agency
demonstrates that local non-elites have little influence. First, community input is most
commonly envisioned among informants as coming to IR through commentary
mechanisms. Second, IRR’S community advisory committees offer little influence to
community members. Finally, there were only two examples of collective mobilized
community groups affecting projects in the interviews. In short, ordinary community
members have little influence over the economic development carried out in their name.
5.3.2. 1 Commentary Mechanisms for Non-elites

While the most commonly cited input mechanisms for community members were
commentary mechanisms, the elective use of these mechanisms requires that community
members are aware of the agency’s work. However, most informants did not think that the
public was very aware of what takes place at the agency. A local reporter said

I don't think the average everyday Joe really knows much about what goes on there
or what's done. You know, obviously they've got a website and post a lot of stuff
on there but you know, there's not a lot of visibility. . ..People don't hear much
about the agency until they actually hold a meeting. Or, you know or right before
the meeting, they'll send out information to the media on what's going to be on the
agenda at the meeting, what projects are going to be considered, and most people,
sometimes even the board, I think, doesn't know exactly what's on the agenda until
they get it in the mail. And so I don't think that the general public, other than what
they see on TV or read in the papers, has a real good handle on how the agency
works, how the decisions are made. . ..[T]he public just gets a snapshot, I think, of
what goes on there. (P10: 115)

Most informants agreed that though the public knows about the agency and is concerned
about it, they do not have much awareness about the agency’s decision process. The IRR’S
public meetings are aired on public access TV but these informants suggested that most

people get information from articles in the local papers. Therefore, while commentary

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mechanisms are available, community members muSt actively search for the information
necessary to use them.

Moreover, the lack of public information iS seen as inherent in the process. Most
informants acknowledged that confidentiality is required to develop economic development
deals. If an IR deal to move a company to the region is well-publicized, competing regions
could use that information to court the company as well. Therefore, the public knows little
about a project until it comes to the board, and even then only the bare minimum the deal is
revealed. The agency makes as little information public as necessary. An agency executive
said:

First of all, even though we’re a public agency, we also operate with confidentiality
agreements and try to preserve the confidentiality of our clients right up until um,
the time when the information becomes public at a board meeting. And so, we
really work hard to, to keep the lobbying and the, you know, public information, to
urn, to a minimum and only to the standards of the law. (P17: 85)

Recall that it is part of the professional economic development ideology discussed in the
literature chapter to withhold information from the public and to involve the public as little
as possible (V ogel & Swanson, 1993; Rubin, 1999). This practice limits how much
community members can comment on projects and programs at IRR.

The tendency to limit information is also apparent in how the agency deals with the
community members on IR community advisory committees (CACS). While the TAC
reviews all project details, other CACS are not as well-informed. One PAC member noted
that even when IR is working on a project, “the discussions are confidential so there isn’t a
lot of information that the agency can give us” (P54: 64). This lack of information about the
agency’s projects limits the influence of CAC members. Only promoters and Staff directly
involved with a project have access to information about it before it goes to the board for a

public vote. Others, both CAC members inside the process and community members

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outside the process, are not informed about projects enough to comment on them or to
contribute to dialogue about them.
5.3.2.2 Community Advisory Committees: A Place for Community Non-Elites?

Within IRR, the TAC is the only community advisory committee with official
decision-making power. TAC members examine proposed funding packages and either
approve them or recommend changes. Other CACS have no official say in the decision
process, but may have some influence over specific programs. For instance, recall that the
Ironworld Task Force examined the organizational structure of Ironworld and made
recommendations to the agency for its re-Structuring (Commissioner's Task Force on
Ironworld, 2004). However, the commissioner and the board decide whether these
recommendations are adopted. Effectively, the nature of all CACS at the IRR, except the
TAC, means that their influence is minimal—they can only influence the process in so far as
they can access influential people in the process. It remains the duty of agency leaders and
board members, not the CACS, to determine projects and programs at the agency.

Since the PAC is cited as an important mechanism for community input by agency
executives, the research focused specifically on the PAC and the influence of the PAC
members. The evidence suggests that the influence of the PAC is small and uncertain. It
does not have a formal role in the decision process as members do not vote for or against
anything. Even PAC members note that their influence is only an indirect one dependent on
the commissioner. One PAC member stated,

all we can do is bring feelings primarily. Some facts, but primarily feelings and
perceptions to her and .tbe’l/ deal with them a: .the tee: fit. I don’t think that we’re really
in a position to make (how do I want to put this?), to achieve a given goal with her.
We can help Shape her thinking and maybe direct her in what’s perceived in the
community. But She’s the one that has to decide how the agency is going to
respond to that (PZ6: 74, emphasis added).

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While four members think that their input gives the agency pause, five others are not sure if'
they are ever heard at all. For example, one member said

I do think we have an impact on some of the things the commissioner does, I think
that and I wouldn’t say it’s a great impact, but I would say she comes to us with
ideas and gets input and that occasionally that input, well that input is either going
to confirm what she was already thinking or what the agency was thinking, or issues
might be raised that she hadn’t thought about. Which would then cause her or her
staff to go back and rethink something or reformulate something in a different way,
and I think that has happened from time to time (PZI:36).

However, another PAC member was more doubtful: “[The IR has] all these advisory
committees, I mean we’re just one of them, if you look in their booklet they’ve got a hell of a
lot of advisory committees. And I’m not sure they listen very much to any of us really”
(P19: 160). This uncertainty of their own influence at the agency suggests that PAC
members perceive that they do not have much influence at IRR.

There are a number of reasons why the PAC’S influence is unclear. First, the
structure of the PAC, as a typical community advisory committee, does not allow for formal
decision-making, so that clear decision influence does not exist. Secondly,two informants, a
PAC member and a staff member, suggested that the PAC is too disparate to wield collective
influence at the agency. “Everyone has individual concerns and problems. We have 20
different members on the [PAC] so we have 20 different concerns” (P13: 131). Unless the
group rallies around one issue, they will likely continue to wield little influence.

The PAC is also without much influence because, as with other CACS, its members
are hand-selected by the agency. Two informants suggested that PAC members were
politically connected to the agency. First, a board member suggested that the commissioner
“puts all the Republicans on [the PAC]” (P20: 151). With less vehemence, a second
informant, a PAC member, said that he assumed that members are chosen to “give [the

commissioner] the answers she wants to get” (Pl8: 80). Both informants suggest that one is

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invited to participate due to connections to IR decision makers. When discussing this issue
at a public meeting, other respondents concurred that the agency selects PAC members that
are connected to agency decision makers. These respondents suggested that it is also
unlikely that these connected participants will significantly disagree with the agency’s
position, goals, or ways of working. Because they are selected by the agency, they already
agree with it. Also, if members were to begin to disagree with the agency, the PAC could
easily be disbanded because it is entirely dependent on agency support for its existence.

Similarly, the PAC is not encouraged to raise larger questions for the agency. Neil
Abbott, a PAC member, suggested that PAC members do not hear about a project until the
agency is “too far down the road” with a project to address any concerns—and certainly too
late to withdraw or significantly alter the IRR’S commitment to it (P32: 83). He also noted
that the PAC was not asked to think deeply about the agency but just to listen to
presentations. In the two observed meetings, no PAC member questioned why a project
was pursued, how the agency saw projects fitting into its overall goals, or whether these
goals are even appropriate for the region. Rather, the conversation focused on the specific
effects of specific projects. Two PAC leaders both concurred with my analysis in follow-up
interviews in August 2005. They suggested that PAC meetings were more about getting
information to the PAC and not about having a deeper discussion of the agency, its goals, or
its projects. Rather, the PAC is useful to the agency in that it passes along the agency’s
perspective to local communities.

Five PAC members emphasized that they are not experts, and that it isn’t their role
to look into the details of projects. Andrea Nathan noted that because some PAC members
want to have input on specific projects, they have been frustrated. However, she

emphasized that “we’re not experts! IR is paying experts to figure out that stuff.” To her,

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the PAC role is more to ask “what about this effect?” It’s the role of the PAC to provide
networking—“connections we can do.”

In 20 interviews with 18 PAC members, only one example of influence of the PAC
really came through—the revision of the PAC’S role with the new commissioner. Though
mentioned by multiple informants, no other concrete examples of influence could be found.
In this case, the revision of the PAC’S role is in line with the description of a CAC. They are
able to set their own agenda within the limits of the organization. However, the role of the
PAC remained what it had been—advisory to the commissioner, dependent on the agency,
and informal.

In August of 2005, the researcher reviewed this conclusion with a one-time PAC
chair. He agreed that he hasn’t seen any examples of the commissioner saying “you guys
told us this, so therefore we tried that.” He did feel that the agency’s position toward one
PAC member’s pet project had shifted. He was not sure if the project would be funded, but
he thought the PAC member had convinced the agency to look at some natural resource
projects differently than they would have in the past. Another active PAC member,
however, disagreed, suggesting that he and other PAC members have been unsuccessful in
moving pet projects forward. This exemplifies that the PAC’S influence is subtle and hard to
confirm.

In short, although the PAC is cited by IR staff as an important input mechanism
for guaranteeing popular participation, the data suggest it has little influence at the agency.
PAC members agree that their influence is small and that their purpose is more to connect
the agency to the local community rather than influence IRR policies. The PAC lacks
influence for a variety of reasons. Structurally, it cannot make any formal decisions and may

be disbanded by IR at any time. Additionally, the PAC is very diverse, and so far its

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members have not coalesced around a Single issue or position so they cannot yet speak with
a group consensus. The PAC is a typical CAC in that it is controlled by IR and has little
ability to affect decisions there.
5.3.2.3 Mobilized Community Action

The data suggest that as commentators, local community members who have no
official role within the IRR have virtually no influence over IRR’S decision process. Only
two informants provided examples of local community members directly influencing IRR
projects. Both referred to mobilized groups of community members opposing proposed
projects to such a degree that the projects were shut down. Quincy Harris (pseudonym), an
IR board member, noted that when the IRRRB was considering funding an alternative
school for problem students, the residents of the town it was planned for rejected the idea.
As a community development, rather than economic development project, it is more
acceptable to have public input on something such as a new school. Greg Xavier
(pseudonym), an IR staff member, recognized that community opposition actually put one
IRR economic development project out of business (P116: 189). He noted that when a fish
farming operation was opened in one of the mine pits, community members were concerned
about the waste contamination in adjoining community water supplies. Because water safety
is what Xavier called a “hot-button” issue, the dedicated community group “basically drove
[the fish farm] out of business” (Pl 16:189). This example suggests that more local input in
the decision process might have rejected the project before it received funding from IRR, or
might have worked with the community to ensure that the project was safe. However, the
overall conclusion to be drawn here is that local communities have little say in the IRR

decision process and can only influence decisions by rejecting them outright.

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While the interviews uncovered a large number of ways for the public to comment
on IR projects, one informant did suggest that community members choose influential IRR
people through the political process. An IRR staff member suggested that community
members were influential because

[I]n a representative democracy, the biggest place they [community members] have
input is at the polling places. And that’s, I mean the commissioner is an appointee
of the governor, we all know how he gets his job, we have ten elected board
members. . . [who] have a lot of input to begin with. . .they’re [the board members
are] given that power through their offices (P116:77).

This suggests that he believes that community members have the opportunity not just to
comment on, or promote, or make decisions about projects, but that they can actually
choose the decision-makers themselves. However, since even elected board members are
appointed by legislators in St. Paul, no other informants felt that community members could
realistically choose those making decisions at the agency and they were, therefore, not
influential in this way.
5.3.2.4 Summary of Community Influence

The data suggest that non-elite community members have only an informal role
using commentary mechanisms. Even PAC members, whom the agency touts as
community participants, have no direct influence. The only other examples of community
involvement deal with consolidated groups of community members rejecting two projects.
Beyond “selling their communities,” most Iron Rangers have little influence in their
economic development. Overall, though there are many participation mechanisms,
community members have little influence over decisions at IRR while elites have much

more.

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5.4 DISCUSSION: WHY ARE INPUT MECHANISMS AND INFLUENCE STRUCTURED IN THIS
WAY?

To answer the final research question, the study considers the theoretical explanations for
why the decision process is shaped the way it is, and how that process reflects the power of
those who created it. First, it examines how the IRR case exemplifies the various forms of
participation discussed in the economic development literature and why. Second, it explores
how competing ideologies combine to marginalize local communities.

5.4.1 Participation

Because technical expertise is so valued in economic development as practiced at
IRR, community members’ participation in decision making is limited. Not only are input
mechanisms amenable only to low levels of influence, CACS serve as bureaucratic lubricant
rather than devolved analytic decision-making bodies.

The input mechanisms at IRR offer participation opportunities in which
participation is limited to information-sharing or review. Community members can attend
public meetings or read about IRR in the local media, and PAC members are expected to
relay IRR information to their local contacts—this is clearly informational participation as
Sullivan (2004) describes it. Locals can also offer commentary to agency staff, board
members, or their local professionals partnering with IRR—what Sullivan (2004) labels
review participation. Interactive participation is rare at the agency, with only TAC members
involved in making decisions. Especially when community elites have more access than
community members, IR is consistent with Sullivan’s (2003) study of economic
development organizations where non-elite community members are involved through their
local government officials rather than directly. On the Iron Range, economic development

professionals and community officials are promoters while businesspeople and bankers are

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TAC decision-makers. However, non-elite community members have few opportunities for
interactive participation, and even when they do (as members of the PAC, for example) their
influence is constrained—the agency determines their duties and can override their
decisions.
5.4.1.1 Overwhelming Elite Influence

AS IRR decisions are made in the process, the elites in the process marginalize the
communities outside the process. The researcher examined many examples of the board
and other elites’ dominance in the decision process. The data Show that certain board
members could influence the process to both bring in businesses and to deny projects.
While Wartenberg (1991, 11) suggests “only by paying attention to the particular use of
power that is at issue is it possible to specify whether power is harmful or beneficial,” the
research focuses on who wields the power. The data offer examples of Jake Anders using
his connections to bring call centers to the region while also refusing to support a business
project outside of his congressional district. These instances exemplified the high influence
of some board members and clearly demonstrate a preponderance of influence in the board.

The ability of some politicians to leverage other power that reinforces their influence
over IRR decisions is part of the local civic culture of the IRR. Reese and Rosenfeld (2002,
30) note that the effect of power is to utilize resources to achieve one’s goal. In this case,
the board politicians are most able to influence the IRR not only because they make up its
governing group (their expected influence), but also because they can leverage a great deal of
resources across those spheres of influence (extraordinary influence). On the other hand,
the commissioner’s power both to bring a project to the board and to veto a project is direct
and due to her role in the hierarchy. Only those, such as Warner Brothers, who can

influence the governor can alter her decisions.

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5. 4.1.2 Accountability

Unlike the five business leaders who suggested that economic development should
be done by “the private sector” or IR staffers (as the experts who understand it),
community leaders suggested that the political leaders who represent them are more
accountable to the community. They suggest that community projects get more assistance if
supported by community leaders connected to board members.

Part of local marginalization is due to the organization hierarchy in which elites are
accountable to other elites and only Slightly to local communities. IRR’S leader is appointed
by and responsible to the governor. Local communities do not determine who the
commissioner is or what goals she has for the agency. The agency’s transition from
community infrastructure programs to business recruitment and tourism efforts may not be
supported by the local communities. In fact, Roberts (1996) suggested that the agency
improved the quality of life of Iron Rangers as long as it focused on what they valued—
community infrastructure development. The new emphasis on job recruitment was not
valued by TAA community members in Roberts’ survey.

There is some direct accountability to local communities because elected board
members are accountable to their constituents. Since a majority of board members must
have 50% of their constituency in the TAA, some local communities have direct
representation on the board; other local communities have no representation. Some board
members are not from the TAA and so those board members are accountable to
constituents far from the Iron Range. One board member (P20) suggested that a legislator’s
actions on the IRR board are closely followed by the local community and that his actions
there are more scrutinized than his actions in St. Paul. However, another board member

(P22) disagreed and said that he gets much more scrutiny from his constituents about what is

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taking place at the capitol than at IRR. The recent addition of three appointed “citizen”
members (meaning residents of the TAA) further distances the board from local
communities because these citizens are directly accountable to those who appointed them—
the governor, the speaker of the house, and the senate majority leader—not their local
communities. Said one citizen member: “\Who do I represent? No one elects me!” (PZO:
59). This suggests that legislative board members, while accountable to their constituents,
are not necessarily responsible to the people of the Iron Range and that citizen board
members are no more so.

Finally, agency Staff members are accountable to the governor and commissioner-—
and work with board members to approve their projects—but do not see their primary
accountability to the people of the region. However, in interviews they did say that their
economic development work has the goal to “improve local communities” and they attempt
to do what’s best for the region. Most staff members live on the Range and many grew up
there so they say they know the communities and can do what is best for them. One staff
member noted that his position is very public and that even in the grocery store, people ask
him to explain projects they have heard about and tell him how they feel about them (PI 16:
79). This demonstrates that while they have no official accountability to community
members, IRR staff members may be influenced by them, or at least interact with them.

Though the staff may have some connections to the local community, little
accountability to community members is built into the agency’s structure. This lack of
accountability may be one reason why informants did not perceive the agency as responsive
to the needs of the local community. This contrasts to the past, when the agency was more

involved with community infrastructure projects. With community projects, “having that

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broader public support in the community was very important” (P21: 104) but with economic
development projects that is no longer the case.

The lack of local influence, especially in the formal agency hierarchy, exemplifies
some criticism of elite—driven economic development: agencies such as the IRR can make
decisions which affect whole regions with little consultation with or accountability to locals.
MacAuley (2004) focused on the importance of agency accountability to ensuring the needs
of the community are met. In contrast to this accountability, the Anders examples show that
IRR can be used by decision makers to address their political aspirations and to assist those
to whom they are well-connected. Stiglitz (2002) agreed that accountability to communities
created better economic development decisions—which is also what three informants
suggested. Terry Fitzgerald, a local business owner, and Frank Simpson, a former IRR staff
member, claimed that promoters who relied on political contacts often had poor business
plans, while PAC member Gavin Tucker also noted that political pressure had forced the
agency into bad economic development choices. This shows that elite influence is often
problematic in economic development decisions and more public involvement would better
meet the needs of local communities.
5.4.1.3 Community Advisory Committees

Because the Partners Advisory Committee (PAC) is cited by the IRR staff as a key
avenue for community input, and because it provides an excellent example of the
community advisory committees (CACS) described by Renn et al, (1995a), the research
examined the influence of PAC members in detail. The data Show that the PAC has no
official role in the decision-process at the IRR because it can only influence the
commissioner’s thinking. Moreover, PAC members themselves do not feel as though they

have much influence over the agency’s programs or policies. Finally, some suggest that the

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PAC should not be particularly influential because members are not economic development
experts.

AS a sounding board, the PAC is expected to pass information on to contacts in local
communities, spreading the IRR’s message beyond those few who attend meetings or visit
the website—which makes it an informational participation mechanism. The PAC is a tool
for the IRR, an instrument (according to Cornwall, 2003) to be used to further the goals of
the agency—not to broaden the agency or make it more responsive to the local community.
Though the PAC also discusses some projects, review participation is limited because PAC
members don’t hear about a project until the agency is already supporting or funding it (P32:
83). Though there are a number of reasons to create CACS with local community members
at public agencies such as the IRR, the PAC is a typical example of the CAC input
mechanism (Renn et al, (1995a). The PAC is helpful for smoothing the bureaucratic
process, a low influence and information-sharing form of participation. This is consistent
with what Reese (1997) found, that economic development advisory boards play a buffer
role between developers and the public. This exemplifies how IRR views the PAC and its
other CACS.

The PAC’S information sharing purpose differs from higher levels of participation in
which these community members could be making decisions about economic development.
If IRR would cede some control over decisions to, or at least engage in open dialogue with,
community groups such as the PAC, according to Brett, the agency could do better work by
increasing the perspectives taken into account (2003). Rather, IRR staff, by purposely
selecting PAC members who are regionally and professionally diverse, recognized the

importance of increasing the perspectives taken into account by decision makers, but do so

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without significantly dialoguing with or devolving any decisions to these community
members.

Additionally, more transformative modes of participation could also enhance the
capabilities of local community members. Brett (2003) agrees with Sullivan (2004) that what
would be Cornwall’s (2003) transformative participation is necessary for effective democracy
and developing the abilities of community members. The IR doesn’t view community
participation on the PAC as an opportunity for democratic representation or accountability
to local communities—rather this role is played by the IRR board (which was already shown
to be only slightly representative of the region). The PAC does provide some legitimacy as
Gavin Tucker, a PAC member, noted in his interview, but this contrasts with its lack of
accountability to communities. With transformative participatory opportunities, community
members might learn enough about economic development to initiate creative, unique
programs suited better to their needs and values than those created by the IRR professionals.
This, however, is not the PAC’s purpose.

The limits placed on public participation at IRR are supported by some theorists
(such as Dewar, 1986; Beaulier, 2004) who argue that devolving too much power to local
communities or community groups can result in poor choices. This is one of the basic
tenants of the elitist theories examined in the literature review. This belief in professional
expertise is supported by those informants who feel that politicians are making poor choices
because they are making political deals rather than economic judgments. However, in the
theory there is great disagreement over whether experts make good decisions. The

interviews elicited the same disagreement.

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5.4.2 Coercive Power

Influence is shaped at the IRR consistently with Wartenberg’s (1991) coercive power.
First, some board members can coerce local government officials because they can control
IRR resources. Frank Simpson explained that city mayors were unable to take a position
that differed from the board members’ position for fear of losing IRR funding. Even if the
threat is subtle or implied rather than openly stated, the board members clearly had the
resources to coerce the local mayors.

In addition to coercing communities directly, board members can ground their
coercive power in other power bases (W artenberg, 1991). Not only can they coerce local
government through their almost hegemonic control of all economic development funding
in the region, they can also coerce other board members through control of other political
resources in the capitol. In this way, a senior legislator such as Jake Anders can single-
handedly reject a project from outside his constituent group—especially if it came from a
community without representation on the board. Obviously, this sort of influence is not
always successful or necessary to fund a project, but six examples mentioned by the
informants demonstrates that it does happen.

Coercive power can be self-sustaining because the powerful (subtly and incidentally
as well as intentionally) construct the structures that then reinforce their own power. In the
19705, Iron Range legislators used their influence at the capitol to redesign the governing
structure of the IRR so that they could control its funds—the funds they can now use to
coerce local communities. Since the only way to change the governing structure is though
state legislation, informants in both interviews and public meetings noted that it is unlikely
that the legislators will give up their privileged role in the decision structure. This is an

excellent example of the powerful using their power (in the legislature, at the time, the Iron

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Range delegation was quite powerful) to structure the agency’s governance so that they
would maintain their power.

In short, the IRR case is consistent with the literature. Staff members distance
decisions from the public and elites dominate the decision process through their coercive use
of power.

5.4.3 Competing Ideologies

The form of economic development practiced at the IR is typical of economic
development across the nation in that it is controlled by elites and there is little public
participation. This marginalization of local communities creates a cycle of apathy, distance,
and mistrust between economic developers and community members. The overwhelming
influence of elites leaves community members with virtually no influence in their own
development. The imbalance is hidden in competing economic development ideologies—-
each of which marginalizes local communities in favor of competing elites.

At IRR, there are two competing ideologies regarding who should make decisions.
First, politician board members conceptualize political representation as the guiding
legitimization of economic development decisions, and base this framework on the right of
communities to have representation in how their taxes are spent. This belief informed the
governing structure, which gives legislators considerable power in the agency’s funding
process.

Second, the IRR staff exemplifies the ideology of technocratic economic growth.
Recall that this concept is based on an appeal to expertise even as it masks the control of
elites and the distancing of decisions from local communities. If this ideology gains currency
in the community, the decision structures which now empower politicians may eventually be

replaced with ones which favor the bureaucratic experts. Additionally, while the board can

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legitimize its role with the concepts of political representation, board members can also
embrace the technocratic ideology as far as how economic development Should be done at
the agency. The agency’s shift from community infrastructure to business recruitment
efforts was made with the consent of the board and demonstrates a Shift from a locally
based economic development ideology to one focused on economic growth through
recruitment.

The data offer many examples of these differing ideologies and shifting
conceptualizations of economic development on the Iron Range. When PAC member
Andrea Nathan (pseudonym) suggests that the PAC should not be making decisions about
IRR projects because “we’re not experts” (PI 17: 15), she is adopting the economic
development ideology that privileges a specific type of expertise over her own knowledge
and that of other non-professional community members. Foucault (1980) would have said
that she is limited by the dominant discourse that frames the debate. When community
leaders argue that local board members are more accountable to them than staff members,
they adopt the political representation ideology. Similarly, when local business owner Chris
Porter argues that board members “should not be one bit politically motivated, they
shouldn’t be elected” (P9: 134), he rejects that political representation ideology. Whileit is
possible that a shift toward the expert-driven framework may eventually alter the decision
structure which empowers legislators, the power of legislative board members to structure
the governing process means it is likely that these ideologies will continue to compete for
some time.
5.4.3.1 Expertise in Economic Growth

IR is clearly elite-driven. Those who dominate the decision process include

1e islators business leaders economic develo ment rofessionals and overnment a ents—
, a 8

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not average community members such as workers, parents and retired residents. As Shown
in Chapter 2, economic development ideology disguises its elitism by supporting technical
expertise. Dewar, in her 1986 critique of IRR’S governance structure, was part of the larger
economic development literature that was pushing for an expert-driven approach to
development. Since that time, the economic growth focus has overridden community
development initiatives at the IRR. This ideology focuses on economic indicators, such as
job creation and expanding tax bases, above other community concerns and results in less
democratic decision making Structures (V ogel & Swanson, 1993). When the IRR focused on
community infrastructure, success depended upon community support. However, as the
IRR moves its focus more toward economic development, local communities have fewer
opportunities to participate in their own development.

The problem with this focus on expertise is that it often masks the elite influence
over the process. Though the bureaucratic decision process is meant to improve the
decisions made at the IRR, the study found that the structure allows those promoters with
elite contacts to circumvent the economic analysis in the decision process. Reese (1997) and
Wolman and Spitzley (1999) note that decision rules could be used to decrease developer
uncertainty and we see that these rules, which include the decision hierarchy and process of
the IRR, can trump economic analysis. For example, when the governor required that
agency fund the Nari/2 Country movie rebate, there was no economic analysis done by the
IRR to determine the benefits of the action or its opportunity costs. Rather than expertise,
those with contacts to the governor benefited. This demonstrates that elitism continues to

dominate economic expertise at IR.

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Elitism interferes with local participation as well as economic analysis. IRR staff
comments were consistent with Rubin’s (1999) findings that economic development staff
feel misunderstood by the public. One IRR staff member noted that

I think. . .most people. . .in general they would know what we do and they might
have more specific knowledge about some area that is especially interesting to them.
But we're fairly diverse, you know, we do a number of different types of programs
so they, I venture to guess that there's not that many people other than perhaps
professional developers or certain city officials that would have applied to us for
grants or interacted with us, that probably have a real good grasp of exactly. . .the
entirety of what we do and more specifically exactly how we do it. (P12: 129).

.A retired IRR staff member agreed: “it’s surprising, as long as I’ve worked there, how many
people, the average person does not know what the agency does and how intricate and
dynamic of an agency it is” (P16:122). Another key community member noted that “I don't
think the average everydayjoe really knows much about what goes on there or what's done”
(PlO: 115). This feeling of being misunderstood by the public could be one reason that
public participation is not highly regarded at the agency. Rubin’s (1999) study exemplified
this attitude, noting that a feeling of public judgment motivated economic developers to
move decisions out of the public view and to adopt bureaucratic processes that favor
business over local community perspectives. At IRR, most decisions are made inside the
agency, with only final details and plans available for public review at public meetings. The
IRR’S insistence that community members must know the agency to participate is one way to
shift decision power away from community members—it limits participants to those who
already agree with the agency. It also privileges the agency’s goals over those of community
members.
5.4.3.2 Use of Input Mechanisms

In addition to making decisions out of public view, the local civic culture at IRR also

affects how formal input mechanisms are used and by whom. Though the data Show three

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main categories of input mechanisms for community members, most commonly mentioned
were commentary mechanisms, including attending public board meetings or other public
forums (9 / 49 interviewees), contacting a board member (11 / 49), and contacting the agency’s
partners (16 / 49). Another common response was participating on an advisory committee,
which is considered an insider mechanism, (14/49)—but this was mentioned by 6 PAC
members and 5 agency staff—only 3 / 15 others mentioned it and no board members
mentioned it. The fact that there were 15 possible mechanisms mentioned by a few
respondents suggests that few people actually know of or use all possible mechanisms.
Rather, most people are aware of 3 main commentary mechanisms and 1 insider mechanism.

At public meetings discussing this research in August of 2005, informants were
asked, all of whom had already been interviewed in earlier Stages, to talk about their
experiences with the agency. They noted a number of various mechanisms, including public
meetings, contacting the commissioner, and promoting projects. They stated that barriers to
using these mechanisms include a lack of trust in the agency, feeling ignored or biased—
against, and logistical hassles which all contribute to a lack of local use of input mechanisms
in IR processes, either as insiders, promoters, or commentators.

Most informants suggested that it was uncommon to attend IRR public meetings,
even though nine informants mentioned it as one way to be involved. A community leader
in the Hibbing public meeting suggested that it is very hard to find meeting notices in the
local papers. Another, a PAC member, added that occasionally the board meets in St. Paul
because that's where the board members happen to be—this is a distance many Iron
Rangers cannot or will not travel to participate. These logistical barriers dissuade local
community members from participation. Rather, local elites attend instead. A local

community reporter summed it up well:

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Respondent: It's pretty much the same people all the time [who attend public IRR
board meetings]. Very rarely are there any real public people that come to show up'.
It’s the same government officials, the county commissioner of [a local city] will
Show up the meeting. A few economic development people from these other
entities. . .will show up at the meeting. You know, I mean, generally there's maybe
20 people watching the meetings, you know. People that are involved in economic
development, or maybe a city official who has a project being considered, maybe a
city administrator or something that that shows up or maybe a mayor. But other
than that, the general public, you don’t really see the general public at the meetings.

Researcher: Are they at all, I mean, are they invited to speak or comment, or do they
get the floor, or not so much?

Respondent: If you contact the board ahead of time they allow public input at the
beginning of each meeting, they usually try to limit it you know to like three minutes
or five minutes at the most. That doesn't happen a lot. It does on occasion, but
they do allow people to talk, kind of whatever they want to talk about that's not on
the agenda right at the beginning of the meeting, if they don't forget to do it, which
they have done. (P10:119-123)

This informant is pointing out that there is little public participation at public meetings and
that what participation there is, three to five minutes at quarterly meetings, isn’t very
meaningful. This exemplifies Renn et al.’s (1995a) point that local community members will
not participate in public decision processes when their opportunities to do so are token.
Since public meetings are not well attended and offer little influence, the Study also
examines other commonly mentioned mechanisms. Only three informants discussed the
possibility of contacting the agency or commissioner directly either with project ideas or with
comments on proposed projects. One community member with decades of experience
working with the agency stated that former commissioners had been very unresponsive to
her community’s attempts to promote projects. She had been involved with a project to
bring a large festival to Ironworld—a tourist heritage center which is managed and funded
by the agency. She recalled that two successive commissioners in office during her project
did not return her phone calls or those of other project supporters. Even as the project
gained momentum in the area, with increasing numbers of supporting community groups,

she said the commissioners “never even had the courtesy to respond.” Because the festival

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needed to use Ironworld, the only appropriate facility in the region, the lack of agency
cooperation meant there could be no music festival. This made the active community
members feel useless and discouraged—they became less willing to promote ideas to the
agency or to work with the agency according to the informant. This example demonstrates
that community members might not be willing to go to the commissioner or to the agency
when they feel ignored.

Local business owners also noted many barriers to promoting their business projects
to the agency. Some, including those at the public meetings, were frustrated with IRR’S
focus. One felt that IRR concentrated too much on big business and that they were
unwilling to help his smaller business succeed. This was a common concern among many
informants, both business and community leaders. While six staff and board members and a
former TAC member stated that the agency treats small local businesses the same as larger
businesses, ten other informants (including local business owners who haven’t received
assistance, community leaders, and PAC members) suggested that the agency limits itself to
large outside recruitment efforts and neglects local businesses. Since small businesses are the
primary locus of job growth in the U.S. economy (Small Business Administration, 2005), a
focus on large industry could limit the effectiveness of IRR. More importantly, the common
perception that the agency focuses on large business also constrains local business owners
from approaching the agency.

Two other local business owners offered another example for how the IRR biases
programs toward large outside businesses. Terry Fitzgerald and Mark Flynn, business
partners who had expanded their business with the help of an IR funding package,

witnessed great confusion over the issue of grants and loans. They concluded that local

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businesses get loans (to repay to IR) while outside businesses get grants (which do not have
to be repaid).

Fitzgerald (F): We had first asked them about grants, they said “well there’s no
grant money available, we don’t do grants.”

Mark Flynn (MF): He was emphatic.

F: “There’s no grantsl”. . .So then we applied for the loan and everything, we get to
the meeting to get our final approval for this [loan] and [a citizen board member]
says. . .“now I’m a little confused here. Tell me what the difference is, some people
get loans and some people get grants. What is the difference between the ones that
get grants and the ones that get loans?” And one of the legislators said “we don’t
give grants. We do not give grants. There are no grants available. We do not do
grants.” [the citizen board member] said... “okay.” And within 5 minutes they
approved three grants and three loans. We got loans. The [grants] were
straightforward grants, Blue Cross/ Blue Shield got a grant... I’m glad those jobs
are here, those are good jobs, but gee it would’ve been nice to have some equal
treatment! (P45: 322-326)

To these business owners, this exemplified that their business was worth much less to the
agency than an outside business and that that’s why the other companies got grants instead
of loan packages. Though a former member of the TAC at the Hibbing public meeting
claimed that these perspectives were no longer accurate and that local small businesses now
have equal weight with the agency, other informants at both public meetings, including PAC
members, community leaders, and local economic development professionals, did not see a
difference in action at the IRR. Rather local business owners feel ignored and devalued and
are discouraged from working with IR.

Finally, a lack of trust in the agency also dissuades local business owners from
promoting their ideas to the agency. One local business owner Stated that his idea was taken
by the agency and given to a competitor. During his interview and at a public meeting, Chris
Porter (a pseudonym), a local business leader, Shared his experience. A craftsman by trade,
he noticed that local business often did not use local professionals but rather contracted with

people outside the area He worked with a local website designer, Don Quirrel (who

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supported the story at the public meeting) to build a site which included listings for local
craftsmen and independent workers, local businesses, area economic development agencies,
area service providers, city and county governments and others. For example, engineers
would be listed and when a local plant needed some engineering work done, they wouldn’t
have to look to the Twin Cities to find an engineer with the skills they needed. A few
months after proposing this idea to a contact at IR and receiving no response, Porter said
that he gave up, paid for the development of the Site himself because he felt it was vital to
the economy of the region, and began compiling a large number of local providers on the
Site. In early 2005, he then heard that IRR had contracted with a community group, one the
agency had organized, to develop a website tool just like the one Porter had proposed.
Porter stated that this was a Significant breech of trust. The experience has left Porter,
Quirrell, and their associates hesitant to approach the agency with ideas in the future. The
person Porter contacted at the agency no longer works there and my other informants did
not know of this incident so it could not be determined what happened at the agency.
However, not only did Porter and Quirrell feel unable to trust the agency, others at the
public meeting who heard Porter’s story were also troubled by it.

This distrust is exacerbated because the agency keeps a significant part of its work
out of the public eye. However, the secrecy bred by community distance from decisions
contributes to a vicious cycle of increasing distrust and distance. This supports Stiglitz’s
(2002) claim that secrecy alienates communities from developers. In this case, the secrecy of
the IRR decision process has created a feeling that outside businesses are prioritized (given
grants) over local and small businesses (given loans). Though insiders, such as a former
TAC member who came to a community meeting, insist that this is not the case, local

community members and business owners have no view into the private dealings, so they

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can never know just exactly what happens there and they become distrustful Of the process.
The secrecy then reinforces the distrust: when local business people such as Chris Porter do
not understand what happened to their project, they feel as though they have been ignored
in favor of some other interest. They then voice their frustration through criticism of the
agency—which causes staff to want to keep even more decisions out of public view (Stiglitz,
2002)

These barriers to public participation are linked to the ideology of economic
development at IRR. The desire to distance the process from public critique causes distrust
as was just described. Similarly, when local business owners witness grants going to others,
they get frustrated and are unwilling to work with the agency so they are lost from the
process as well. The emphasis on technocratic expertise over local community knowledge
also discourages participation. Finally, even logistical hassles are a result of the elite-centric
ideology—public meetings take place at the capitol because it is convenient for the board
members and the concerns of community members who might want to participate are
marginalized.

5.5 CONCLUSION: COMPETING IDEOLOGIES MARGINALIZE COMMUNITY MEMBERS

The data Show that coercive power, based on competing ideologies, functions to
distance decisions from communities and put influence in the hands of politicians and
experts. The research finds that the IR is consistent with what is expected from the
literature and its local civic culture is dominated by elites while the economic development
ideology masks the elite influence. Community members are excluded from the official
hierarchy and can influence the process only through their connections to decision makers.
This results in a technocratic process that can (though certainly not always does) be used to

entrench the power of elites and marginalize public participation.

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6. CONCLUSION

This thesis explored how community members are involved in economic
development decision-making. As with other public work, economic development is a
complex decision process in which some decision makers determine programs affecting
entire communities. Reese and Rosenfeld (2002) developed the concept of local civic culture
to examine how decision makers come to power and make economic development
decisions. LCC describes the formal and informal decision-making rules and expectations.
This research explored the LCC at IRR, describing the decision process and uncovering the
input mechanisms available to community members to participate in IR decisions.

The economic development literature has also found that elites Often dominate
policy-making and that business perspectives take precedence over community goals (Rubin,
1999). Scholars have begun to focus on the implications of this elite bias, and a number
have called for more public participation in the economic development policy-making
process (Sharp et al., 2002; Sullivan, 2004). Wolman and Spitzley (1999) suggest that
contrasting the roles of a variety of actors, including Officials, experts, and lay people, in the
decision process will uncover how they work together to create policy. As such, a second
goal of this thesis was to examine the people in the process to understand who is influential
at IRR.

Finally, once the LCC of decisions and the influence of those involved were clearly
understood, the research went a step further to explore the ideologies which frame this LCC.
Ideologies underlie the decision rules, the LCC: they are the systems of beliefs upon which
the rules are based. These underlying belief sets legitimize the local civic culture which
formally empowers decision makers. The literature suggests that the current economic

development ideology legitimizes business concerns over community ones. Thus, the final

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focus of the research is to understand the ideologies that create and legitimize the decision
process at IRR. Uncovering these ideologies and how they empower elites is the first step in
mobilizing public participation. By making explicit the marginalization of community views,
concerned community members can begin to demand accountability from and dialogue with
their leaders.

The results Show, first, that there are a number of mechanisms for public input, and
that these cross a spectrum of participatory forms. Insider mechanisms, while giving
participants a great deal of influence, are often accessed by elites—legislators, professional
economic developers, and business executives who make up the governing bodies at IRR.
Promotion mechanisms allow for greater participation of a wider variety of economic
development professionals outside of IR. These community elites are involved in their
professional capacities as local government officials and business owners and have limited
opportunity to influence the process. Finally, commentary mechanisms, though plentiful
and available for non-elites, offer little influence in economic development policy-making.

These findings were not unexpected from the literature. Students of public
participation in policy making have long noted that bureaucrats and other elites distance
decision-making processes from communities (V ogel & Swanson, 1993; Wolman 8c Spitzley,
1999). This distance protects elites from criticism, reduces the risks of bureaucrats, and
often shortens the decision process to fit budgetary time tables (Renn et al., 1995a; Rubin,
1999). Regardless of the reasoning, the distance also creates distrust between decision
makers and communities which further reduces the interactions between them (Stiglitz,
2002). Underlying ideologies legitimate this distance by framing economic development

decisions in ways that empower elites and marginalize community members.

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The results also suggest that at IRR, two ideologies marginalize community
members. The political representation belief set suggests that community members are
represented by legislators in their dual role as IRR decision makers and political
representatives. Legislative board members use this ideology to justify the distribution of
IRR benefits to their own legislative districts while excluding others. This ideology also
supports the legislators’ primacy in the decision process: board members are hierarchically
above the agency staff because, according to the ideology, they should control public
spending. Similarly, the economic growth ideology masks its elitism under a guise of
expertise. This expertise legitimates business and economic concerns above those of
community members and argues that experts, not politicians, should make decisions.

6.1 IMPLICATIONS

This thesis offers several contributions to the literature. First, it supports Reese and
Rosenfeld’s (2001b) point that input mechanisms do not guarantee participation in decision
processes. The findings indicate that different input mechanisms, whether insider,
promotion, or commentary, do not differ in the amount of influence participants have. At
IRR, PAC members, like other non-elite community members, have little influence. Rather,
influence is determined by the belief system which in this case, privileges elites.

Second, this research illustrates how community influence is related to underlying
ideologies that frame how economic development is practiced. At IRR, economic
development is defined as business-focused; therefore the knowledge of non-elite, non-
business community members is not valued as highly as the knowledge of elites and
businesses. Thus, community member influence is not dependent upon input mechanisms,
it is dependent the ideology of economic development that privileges elites. What is shown

is that changing the structures, such as adding community advisory committees at IRR, may

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be necessary, but is not sufficient for increasing community influence unless community
knowledge is valued by the decision makers themselves.

The overall lesson to be learned from these two points is that focusing on decision-
making rules, the LCC, is not sufficient to understand coMunity influence over public
programming. The study of local civic cultures focuses on the decision process and rules,
but not on the ideology which legitimizes it. Researchers need to understand the underlying
ideology in order to grasp why certain people are influential in public processes.

In contrast to economic development literature, the literature on public participation
and participatory democracy focus on interactions between citizens and their governing
bodies. This case study contributes to these literatures as well. Renn et al. (1995a) note that
the point of public participation is an engaged dialogue between community members and
policy makers. Thus, it is not necessary for program decision processes to be converted to
communal voting Structures. What is needed is a space for decision makers and community
members to engage in respectful dialogue which recognizes the importance of expertise as
well as lay knowledge in addressing community concerns (Renn et al., 1995a). While Clarke
and Guile (1999) find a lack of structures for consensual decision processes in public
programs, this research illustrates that these Structures, or input mechanisms, will only create
open processes when the underlying belief systems support these means of communication.

This research also demonstrates that elite—driven processes can be undemocratic and
inequitable. This is applicable to expert-driven decision making in a number of fields, such
as public health, land use, environmental remediation, or political science. According to
Gaventa (1999), community members’ exclusion from public processes results in governance

above the people, not of it or by it. The implication for building democracy is that

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opportunities to democratize public service institutions are lost. This creates continuing
equity issues—as community members are excluded, public policy continues to benefit elites.

This research builds connections between the economic development and
participatory democracy literatures. Gaventa (1999) notes that to overcome the ideologies
that marginalize communities, it is necessary to use what Cornwall (2003) would call
transformative participatory mechanisms, such as consciousness raising, developing
collective identities and transformative learning. Jones and Gaventa (2002, 25) argue that
engaged citizenship requires a governance structure that allows space for “citizen awareness
of, and control over, the deciSion-making processes which influence their lives.” They
recognize that engaged democracy requires that governors be accountable to citizens
directly, in all their actions, not just in those instances where they invite citizen participation
(] ones & Gaventa, 2002). Only by building citizen competence can communities self-govern
effectively.

This case shows both what is challenging about participatory governance and how it
might be construed. In economic development, professional practice requires distancing
decisions from the community and including public participation only when necessary to
overcome resistance. While this distance is contrary to participatory democracy, some
structures to achieve citizen engagement are already in place. Community advisory
committees could be altered to create genuine community influence, giving members control
over some decisions. Community members could shape the overall goals of the agency,
engaging in dialogue about the real reason for its existence and what the communities hope
to gain from IRR’s work while leaving specific project details to staff experts. Some
informants even suggested that the IRR board be transformed into an elected or selected

board of local community members. However, the research shows that these people would

124

only communicate with and work for the entire Range community if the fundamental
understanding of economic development expanded to embrace the interests of the entire
Range community.

What is apparent here is that the real shift would have to take place in the ideologies
framing IRR’s work with all community members. Emphasis on expertise could be
combined with respect for lay knowledge and values. Community change could be
envisioned more broadly than business recruitment. Community elites, board members and
IR staff members could be made more accountable to people directly, through direct
elections, the creation of new governing boards, or even new and innovating organizational
structures uniquely appropriate for the IRR context. While IRR serves as an example of
governance far from participatory democracy, it is the thinking that must change, rather than
governing structures themselves.

This research offers an occasion to investigate the local civic cultures and ideologies
underlying public decisions in communities across the country. With a thorough
understanding of the ideologies of participation and marginalization, engaged leaders and
communities can build, collaboratively, governing systems which empower and enrich the
communities in which they are constructed.

6.2 LIMITATIONS

There are, of course, some limitations to this research. First, the location of the
research site was not conducive to the iterative nature of interviewing and analysis that is
typical of qualitative research. It was difficult to follow—up on working hypothesis that
emerged later in the process. The in-depth interviews, while providing rich data, took a great
deal of time to examine and analyze. Also, the research took place in Minnesota in the

summer of 2004, but the bulk of the analysis was completed in the summer of 2005 in

125

Michigan. Because of the time the analysis took and the distance to travel for interviews,
follow-up interviews were difficult to arrange. Specifically, a former IRR staff member had
much to offer on the extraordinary influence of board members. Had time permitted, it
would have been helpful to interview other IRR staff members and follow-up with board
members to see how much they might validate or contradict his perspective.

Second, while informants suggested that there was a great deal of public interest in
the agency, no members of the general public attended the meetings held in August 2005.
The only people that attended were those who had already been interviewed, and none of
the current agency Staff or board members participated. It would be useful to know why the
meetings were unattended and if community members are more apathetic about IRR work
than informants suggested. While outside the scope of this project, a clearer understanding
of public perceptions of IR and its work would also clarify how much the views of the
public align with those of the agency. This would demonstrate whether the agency is
supporting community goals and values through its current programs. .

Third, the scale and scope of the use of extraordinary influence was not uncovered
through this Study. There were six examples of extraordinary influence, but most informants
concurred that most projects go through the funding process without such assistance.
However, it cannot be confirmed how often extraordinary influence is used due to a lack of
data about projects that are never funded and thus never become public. For example, it is
unknown how often a board or executive decision funds a project, like the Warner Brothers
movie rebate, that has not been examined by the technical experts or staff. Similarly, it is
unknown how many projects do not get to the public board meetings. It is especially
difficult to know how many projects, like Pete Craven’s, are dropped because a board

member refuses support. Thus, while a detailed quantitative analysis of this question would

126

be very helpful, the study can only suggest that extraordinary influence has been and can be
used to favor some projects at IRR.
6.3 NEXT STEPS

This case study opens a number of other avenues Of inquiry. Most obviously, since
Roberts found in 1996 that Iron Range community members “believed that the IRRRB
[IRR] should not shift away from funding community development in favor of greater
investments in tourism and business attraction” (56), it would be informative to run her
study again today. Would one find that IRR Still responded enough to local residents to
conclude that the IR is improving the lives of community members as she claimed?

Second, if Reese and Rosenfeld’s (2002) local civic culture concept were expanded to
investigate how the interaction of community members and decision makers is structured,
would one find that different Structures and civic cultures include community members in
different ways? Or would one find, as was found at IRR, that different local civic cultures
are founded on similar ideologies that marginalize the public in favor of some group or
groups of elites, be they technocrats, business leaders, politicians, or others?

Third, the question of structure is interesting and could be more deeply studied.
Informants in this project were asked how they would ideally like to see the agency
organized but it was not possible to delve into what that ideal agency would do. Focusing
on this question is an excellent opportunity for a participatory research project in which
community members and IR Staff collaborate to understand the goals and interests of Iron
Rangers and how better to incorporate them in the work of IRR. This type of project could
determine whether structural changes are necessary or if what is really needed is a change in

how IRR conceptualizes its work.

127

Finally, Gaventa (2002), Boyte and Kari (1996), and many others are turning the
focus on the potential for new conceptualizations of participation as tools in the
democratization of social policy. This democratization is not just seen as an abstract good—
putting power back in the hands of the people—but also as a practical one, a way to make
policy that can overcome the challenges it is addressing by building the capacities of
participants. The application of these new conceptualizations of public work (Boyte & Kari,
1996) and democratization (Gaventa, 2002) to IR might lead to a re-conceptualized agency
whose purpose is not just the economic development of a few communities in northern
Minnesota, but the transformation of how Iron Rangers work collectively and individually to
develop themselves and their communities. This is the most ambitious goal for governance
and democracy in the coming years—the building of economically and socially viable
communities in both rural and urban areas in the context of shrinking industry and global

competition.

128

7. APPENDICES

7.1 DATA COLLECTION MATERIALS

7.1.1 Interview Consent Form

This project investigates how Iron Range Resources (IRR) determines what projects they
fund and how they make decisions. The project is specifically interested in understanding
what influences the decision process and in what ways people are involved. I’ve spoken with
other professionals involved in IR work and they suggested that you would be a good
contact to learn about this process.

Subject’s Time

I want you to have time to express your perspective, so this interview will likely last between
45 minutes and 1 hour. I respectfully request the opportunity to follow-up if clarification is
needed.

Voluntary Participation
Your participation in this process is entirely voluntary. You may at any time chose to stop
participating, refuse to answer any questions, etc.

Confidentiality and Anonymity

The information you share with me is entirely confidential. The researchers are the only
ones who will have any access to the notes from this meeting and any other meetings. In all
public and private documentation you will have a pseudonym, and no quotes will be directly
attributed to you. Your privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law.

Risks and Benefits

The risks of participation in this project are minimal. In the unlikely circumstance that your
comments were to be disclosed, it might affect your employment or involvement in IR
activities. I will protect against this by guarding the information you give me. Today’s
interview will be transcribed by me without your name or identifying information and will be
digitally stored in protected computer files. One printed copy of the transcript will also be
kept (in case of computer data loss) in a locked safe. To minimize the risk that someone can
link any reported quotes or information to you personally, I will not use your name or any
information that may identify you, like your job title, position in the community, or other
information that others might recognize.

The benefits of your participation include the opportunity to learn about the processes of
the IRR, to read the research results, and to comment on the conclusions. Your comments
will be included in the final paper and I will take care to guard your confidentiality in that
paper and in all other public and private presentations of the project.

____Consent to be recorded
With your permission, this interview will be digitally recorded. This allows me to check my
accuracy in recording what you’ve told me. You have the right to ask me to stop recording

129

at any time. If you choose to discontinue the interview, what you have shared will still be
transcribed and analyzed. If you chose not to be recorded, my notes from the interview will
be treated in the same manner as the recording.

Contact Person

If you have any questions about this Study, please contact the researcher (Lexine Hansen,
517-214-0560, 218-927—3849 or hansenle@msu.edu). If you have questions or concerns
regarding your rights as a study participant, or are dissatisfied at any time with any aspect of
this study, you may contact—anonymously, if you wish—Peter Vasilenko, Ph.D., Chair of
the University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (U CRIHS) by phone:
(517) 355-2180, fax: (517) 432-4503, e-mail: ucrihs@msu.edu, or regular mail: 202 OldS Hall,
East Lansing, MI 48824. Hours: 812 and 1-5 M-F.

By signing below, you voluntarily agree to participate in this study. Thank you for your
participation!

X DATE:

 

130

7.1.2 Public Meeting Participation Consent

To be read at public data presentation meetings
Thank you for coming to today’s meeting regarding this research project. I am investigating
how Iron Range Resources (IRR) makes decisions. The project is specifically interested in
understanding what influences the decision process and in what ways ordinary citizens are
involved. Today, I will be presenting the results of my research last summer and fall with
individuals involved with the agency. I hope to add your responses to this presentation to
the final written product, which will be published as my Master’s Thesis at Michigan State
University.

Subject’s Time
I am here to get your feedback, so I’ll try to keep my presentation to about 30 minutes and
will invite comment for at least 30 minutes after that.

Confidentiality

This is a public meeting and anything you say here can be noted by other participants and
possibly members of the press if they are present. However, at the conclusion of the
meeting, the information that I gather tonight will be kept entirely confidential. My
professor and myself are the only ones who will have any access to my notes from this
meeting and any other contact I might have with you. In all public and private
documentation you will have a pseudonym, and no quotes will be directly attributed to you.
Your privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law.

Risks and Benefits

The risks of your participation in this project are minimal. In the circumstance that your
comments were to be disclosed, it might affect your employment or involvement in IR
activities. I will protect against this by guarding the information you give me. In taking
today’s notes, I will not use your name or any information that may identify you. If you are
concerned with speaking up today because you don’t want your comments disclosed, I
welcome you to contact me personally at your convenience and will distribute my contact
information in a moment.

The benefits of your participation include the opportunity to learn about the processes of
Iron Range Resources, to hear the research results, and to comment on my conclusions.
Your comments will be included in the final paper and I will take care to guard your
confidentiality in that paper and in all other public and private presentations of the project.

Contact Cards

I am distributing contact cards with my information and the information of Michigan Stat
University’s review board. If you have any questions about this study, please contact me
personally (Show my contact side of the card). You can also contact me if you prefer to
offer your feedback privately rather than at this meeting. If you have questions or concerns
regarding your rights as a study participant, or are dissatisfied at any time with any aspect of
this study, you may contact—anonymously, if you wish—Peter Vasilenko (show back of the
card).

131

Voluntary Participation

By remaining in this meeting and contributing, you are agreeing to participate in this research
project and have your comments included in the research. You can choose to leave at any
time to discontinue your participation.

Contact Card:

 

Side A Side B

Contact Lexine Hansen Contact Peter Vasilenko, Ph.D.,
Researcher Chair of the University Committee on
By phone at 517-214-0560 (cell) or 517-853— Research Involving Human Subjects
8396 (home) (UCRIHS)
By e-mail at hansenle@msu.edu By phone at 517-355-2080 or fax 517-432-
By mail at 151 Natural Resources Building, 4503
Michigan State University By e—mail at ucrihs@msu.edu
East Lansing, MI 48824 By mail at 202 Olds Hall,

Michigan State University

East Lansing, MI 48824

 

 

 

 

132

7.1.3 Interview Schedules

7. 1.3.1 Key Informants Interview Schedule

This is a topical interview in Stage One. I want to know who makes program and
project decision, and get an overview of the decision process.
INFORMANTS: Key IRR staff and outsiders familiar with decision processes.

1) How are program areas at the IRR decided?
a) What are the Steps in the process?
i) Who usually instigates program changes?
ii) Who makes the final decision of program direction?
b) What is the emphasis of IR programs? What are the goals for the work?
c) Who are the decision makers in the process?
i) Which decision makers are critical in making changes? Why?
ii) Is anyone outside of the agency important in this way? How?

2) What about individual projects within program areas? Can you walk me through the typical
process that projects take at IRR?
a) What are the steps in the process?
i) Who usually instigates projects?
ii) How long does it take to reach a decision?
iii) How do the projects typically tie to the goal of IR work?
iv) What is one sure-fire way to get a project supported?
b) Who are the decision makers in the process?
i) Which decision makers are critical in getting a proposal funded? Why?
ii) Is anyone outside of the agency important in getting support? How?

3) How aware is the average Iron Range person of your programs?
a) How do they find out about the direction of the agency?
b) If they have ideas or comments, to whom do they speak?
4) What about specific projects? How do people find out about IRR project resources?
a) If a citizen has an idea, where or how can 3 / he get support?
b) How are project locations decided?

5) Which program areas most positively impact local community members? How?

6) If you had to choose one project as the most successful, which would it be? What is
successful about it?

133

7.1.3.2 IRR Stafl‘ Interview Schedule

This is a cultural interview in Stage Two. I want to know how the IRR agenda is set (and

why) and how projects are chosen within that agenda. This interview is specific to
agency decision makers; for board members, the questions will ask about the
programs that structure the projects rather than about projects.

INFORMANTS: IRR stafi'.

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

Please tell me about the mission and goals of Iron Range Resources.
a) How do you define the overarching goals of IR?

b) What is “economic development”?

c) What is the big picture of the agency?

Can you describe for me the IRR program area in which you work?
a) Is there an overarching goal or mission for your program area?
b) How does your program differ from other IRR areas? How is it Similar?

Can you describe for me the types of projects in your program?

a) What outcomes are you looking for in your projects? How are they different from
other projects?

b) How do you prioritize projects? How are they ranked?

c) What are the most important characteristics of projects when you consider them?

d) What makes a project successful?

e) Who do you talk to about the projects you’re considering?

How do you decide which projects are funded?

a) [If there is a proposal involved] What is the process once you have the proposal?

b) Do certain people (on the board or in the agency) have “expertise” in certain areas?

c) Are you under pressure from groups or people, either inside or outside IRR, when
you are determining what sort of projects to support?

How should community members be involved in this process?

a) How are project locations decided?

b) Who is impacted by these projects?

c) DO you think community members are interested or apathetic? Why?

d) What is an ideal amount of community participation? Should the community be
more/ less involved in these decisions? Why or How?

e) How does community involvement affect the success of projects? Why?

134

7.1.3.3 IRR Board Members Interview Schedule

This is a cultural interview in Stage Two. I want to know how the IRR agenda is set (and

why) and how projects are chosen within that agenda. This interview is specific to
board members; for agency decision makers, the questions will ask about “projects’
within programs rather than about programs.

3

INFORMANTS: IRR board members.

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

Please tell me about the mission and goals of Iron Range Resources.
a) How do you define the overarching goals of IR?

b) What is “economic development”?

c) What is the big picture of the agency?

Can you describe for me the program areas IRR supports?

a) What outcomes are you looking for in these areas? How are they different?
b) How do you prioritize programs? How are they ranked?

c) What are the most important characteristics of programs?

(1) Is there an overarching goal or mission for all programs?

e) What makes a program successful?

I) Who do you talk to about the programs you’re considering?

How do you decide which programs the agency should support?
a) Who directs the agency and focuses it on specific goals?
b) How are those goals determined? By whom?

When deciding specific projects, how do you determine which are funded?

a) [If there is a proposal involved] What is the process once you have the proposal?

b) Do certain people (on the board or in the agency) have “expertise” in certain areas?

c) Are you under pressure from groups or people, either inside or outside IRR, when
you are determining what sort of programs to support?

How Should community members be involved in this process?

a) How are project locations decided?

b) Who is impacted by IR programs?

c) Do you think community members are interested or apathetic? Why?

d) What is an ideal amount of community participation? Should the community be
more/ less involved in IR actions and decisions? Why or How?

e) How does community involvement affect the success of IR and its projects? Why?

135

7.1.3.4 PAC Members Interview Schedule

This is a cultural interview in Stage Three. I want to know how the IRR interacts with the

volunteer citizens on the Partner’s Advisor Committee.

INFORMANTS: PAC members.

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

Background:

a) What do you do?

b) How long have you been on the PAC? Did you work with IR before you joined
the PAC?

Can you describe for me what you think Iron Range Resources does?

a) What is the mission and goals of the agency?

b) Can you describe for me the program areas IRR supports? How does it accomplish
those goals?

c) What kinds of projects are done by the agency?

d) What are the most important characteristics of programs and projects?

e) What makes a program or project successful?

Can you describe for me the role of the Partner’s Advisory Committee?

a) Do you help the commissioner decide which direction the agency should go?

b) Is there a leader of the PAC? Who seem to be most involved and “in charge” at the
meetings?

What is it like to participate in the PAC?

a) How did you get on the PAC?

b) What do you add to the PAC? Why did they select you?

c) What sort of time commitment does it require?

(1) Do people in the community ever ask you what is going on at IRR? Do they try to
convince you to support certain projects or ideas?

e) Who do you talk to about your work on the PAC?

f) Does your participation help you in your other work?

How should community members be involved in the work of Iron Range Resources?

a) Do you think community members are interested or apathetic? Why?

b) Does community involvement affect the success of projects? In what ways?

c) What is an ideal type of community participation? Should the community be
more/ less involved in these decisions? Why or How?

d) If you could redesign the agency to be more helpful to the mining communities,
what would you do?

136

7.1.3.5 Business Owners

This is a cultural interview in Stage Three. I want to know how business owners are involved

in IR decision processes.

INFORMANTS: Business owners who have been granted or denied IRR funding.

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

Business Relocation or Project:
a) What do you do?
b) What led to your interest in this region?

Can you describe for me the process you went through to get IRR assistance from

recognizing that your business needed to grow to your final project?

a) Who did you first talk to at the agency? How did you hear about IRR?

b) Was the agency responsive to your needs as a businessperson? Did the agency and
its staff respond to your requests? In what ways?

c) Was the process efficient? Where were bottlenecks or challenges?

d) What was frustrating about the process?

e) What did you think worked well?

f) If you received funding, why do you think you got assistance? If you did not, why
do you think IRR was unable to fund you?

Community Involvement:

a) Was there community interest or involvement in your project? What did it look like?
Who was involved? When were people involved?

b) How did you feel about this? Would you have liked more or less community
involvement ? Did what you experienced influence your decision to relocate here?

If you could redesign IRR to be more responsive to business needs, what would it look
like at the end of the day?

Do you think IR is doing what it should to help this region develop economically?

137

7.1.3.6 Economic Development Officials

This is a cultural interview in Stage Three. I want to know how economic development

organizations and officials are involved in IR decision processes.

INFORMANTS: Community economic developers.

1)

2)

3)

Economic development background:

a)
b)

C)
d)

What do you do?

Can you describe for me the programs and projects that you do to promote Aurora?
What is your most recent success?

Do you collaborate with IR? In what ways, what types of projects? DO you
overlap?

Are community members interested or involved in your work? In what ways?
Who/ which members?

Can you describe for me what you think Iron Range Resources does?

a)
b)

C)
d)

C)

What is the mission and goals of the agency?

Can you describe for me the program areas IRR supports? How does it accomplish
those goals?

What kinds of projects are done by the agency?

What are the most important characteristics of programs and projects?

What makes a program or project successful?

How should community members be involved in the work of Iron Range Resources?

a)
b)

C)
d)

Do you think community members are interested or apathetic? Why?

Does community involvement affect the success of projects? In what ways?

What is an ideal type of community participation? Should the Community be

more/ less involved in these decisions? Why or How?

If you could redesign the agency to be more helpful to your community, what would
you do?

138

7.1.3. 7 Community Leaders

This is a cultural interview in Stage Three. I want to know how organizations and people

working with mining-dependent communities are involved in IR decision
processes.

INFORMANTS: Leaders and members of community organizations.

1) Background:

2)

3)

4)

5)

a)
b)

How does your organization work in mining-dependent communities?

i) What do you do, what does your organization do?

Are you a displaced miner? If so:

i) How long did you mine? How long have you been displaced? What do you do
now?

ii) Did you get assistance during your transition from mining to what you do now?

What type of assistance? Who helped you?

Are you familiar with Iron Range Resources?

Are there IRR projects in your area?

What do you know about IR and its projects?

Have you been involved in projects with them? If so:

i) How involved was your community in this project? Should there be different
involvement? What would that look like?

ii) How does community involvement affect the success of projects?

How have hard-hit communities benefited (or not) from IRR projects?

a)
b)

IS there direct assistance to mining households?
In your opinion, who does the IRR help?

Does IRR listen to communities and community activists?

8)
b)

Who does IRR work with usually?
Who does IRR listen to?

How should community members be involved in this process?

a)
b)

C)

Do you think community members are interested in or apathetic about IRR projects?
What makes them interested or apathetic?

Should activists be involved in IR decisions? In what ways? What about
community members?

If you could redesign the agency to be more helpful to the mining communities,
what would you do?

139

7.2 DATA ANALYSIS MATERIALS

7.2.1 Coding Table

Table 7.1: Code List and Definitions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categry Code word Short definition or deseription

Roles of Board Quotes that describe the board's Structure or role.

Actors Businesses Mentions of the role of biz people and how they interact
and Infor- with agency. (may be further divided into businesses which
mants received IRR assistance and those which haven’t)

Citizens Code marks references to the role of citizens and everyday
people in the decision process.

Commis- Quotes that specify the characteristics, role, or abilities of

sioner the commissioner specifically.

IRR Staff Discusses the role of the staff in the programs, processes,
and prolects of the agency.

Outsiders Refers to the role and participation of those outside the
main stakeholders (those non-community, non-biz targets,
non-affected by the work of IR).

PAC Code notes the role of PAC members in the process and
structure.

Partners Denotes the role of agencies and groups with whom the
IRR works. Partners refer to a relationship of equality
between the agency/ org and IR.

TAC Refers to the role and make-up of the Technical Assistance
Committee '

Typology Community This code notes when subjects talk about community
of Develop-ment develq3ment as different from economic development.
Develop- Economic This code describes or details what is economic
ment Develop-ment development. It can be definitions of ED from particular
perspectives or a description of economic development
projects or ideas.
Deci- Decision This code focuses on what happens, in what order, etc. It
sions Process is about the decision process, not the hierarchy or structure
surroundingthe process.
Private This code is the opposite of public and is
Nature used when subjects mention the need for
privacy in the decision process. (This has
nothing to do with the private sector.)
Public This code is used when subjects discuss the
Nature public nature of the agency, its activities,
decisions etc. It is the opposite of the
Private code. Basically it denotes where
citizens and non-staff cannot have any
official input.
Decision This code differentiates the Structure and organization of

 

140

 

 

Structure

the agency's deciSion-making components. It delineates
the hierarchical position of the players. It compliments
the decision process code.

 

IRR

IRR Goals

This code mentions what the agency is trying to
accomplish, what its main mission and goals and aims are.
This concept ties to how'IRR defined economic
development and how it puts that definition into flactice.

 

Statute This code mentions the statute--just to
underline legitimacy or limitations or those
sorts of things.

 

 

IRR History

This code signifies mentions of the history of the agency,
and its development over time.

 

Programs

This code signifies descriptions of the programs of the
agency.

 

Project
Process

Refers to the process of a project from start to finish.

 

 

Other
Concepts
key to
under-
standing
the IRR
context

Account-

ability

This code refers to how the agency is accountable to
citizens and other players. Though not directly applicable
to my questions, I think this is important because it may
show mechanisms for citizen input and the ideological
ideas behind why citizens can/ cannot participate in
decisions.

 

Conflict

This code refers to instances of conflict in the decision
process and other workings of IR between the various
stakeholders: Board and Commissioner, Businesses and
Agency, Citizens and Politicians, etc.

 

Expertise

This code refers to mentions of expert knowledge and
expertise or professionals or professionalism. Basically this
is where specific, expert knowledge is discussed or
acknowledged.

 

Failure

This code refers to subjects mentioning projects or
programs where the agency has failed or where a project
has not been successful, has been a waste, etc.

 

Ideal Agency

This code refers to when people say they think the agency
SHOULD be doing X or that ideally, if they were in
charge, it would look like Y.

 

Input

This code is used when subjects discuss who has access to
the decision process, who is listened to, basically who has
input in the process as well as how (the mechanisms

through which) input takes place. (It is possibly linked to

decision process or Structure).

 

 

Networking

 

This code is used when subjects talk about the connections
of non-staff or board members to the agency, its decisions,
projects, or to other people involved in the agency, etc.
This will hopefully lead us to understand how actors are
connected and what that means for how they influence the
process.

 

141

 

 

Politics

This code marks when subjects mention the political
agendas or actions in the process. Especially in discussing
how the process flows and the roles of stakeholders,
politics and political influence seem important, so the
concepts of politics and political interplay are key.

 

Various This code is used when subjects refer to
Admin- the change in administration with political
istrations changes at the capital. It also
demonstrates that IRR Staff might feel
insecure (a major issue in the ED
decision-making literature).

 

 

Qualifications

This code is used when the subject discusses the
qualifications necessary for citizens to be members of the
PAC or of other IRR committees. This is where we find
out WHY people are selected by IR staff to collaborate
with the agency

 

Sexy Quotes

These quotes are ones that just sound great, they are
snappy, clear, and interesting and would look great in print.

 

 

 

Success

 

This code indicates when subjects talk about what they
think characterizes the success of prg'ects or programs.

 

142

 

7.2.2 Displays

Table 7.2: Summ

7 Matrix of Input Mechanisms by Informant

 

PAC member
(13)

IRR Staff (8)

Board (7)

Other (15)

 

FORMAL
MECHANISMS

 

Participation in
Public Board
Meeting

3/18

1/8

2/7

3/15

 

Participation in
other public
forums

3/18

2/8

0/7

0/15

 

Political Process
(voting for
political

representation)

0/18

1/8

1/7

0/15

 

Contacting
Legislative Board
Members

2/18

2/8

5/7

2/15

 

Contacting Citizen
Board Members

0/18

0/8

1/7

0/15

 

Contacting
Agency

1/18

2/8

' 0/7

/15

 

Contacting the
Governor

0/18

1/8

0/7

/15

 

Participating on
the PAC

3/18

2/8

0/7

/15

 

Participating on
other advisory
boards

6/18 & obsv.

5/8

0/7

3/15

 

Citizens included
in agency work as
experts.

3/18

1/8

0/7

3/15

 

Citizens involved
as project sponsor
(partner level)

1/18

0/8

2/7

1/15

 

 

INFORMAL
MECHANISMS

 

Informal
relationship with
Board Member

0/18

0/8

0/7

0/15

 

Informal
relationship with
IR Staff

 

0/18

 

 

1/8

 

0/7

 

0/15

 

143

 

 

 

Input through a 2/18 2/8 5/7 7/15
partner

Input through 17/18 & obsv. 1/8 0/7 0/15
PAC members

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

144

 

Table 7.3: Influence Consensus Table

 

Informant Roles

 

PAC

members

IRR Board
(7)

IR Staff
(8)

Citizens
and Others

Business
leaders (7)

 

Support Board
Influence

(13)
3

1

(3)
2

3

 

Support
Commissioner
Influence

1

1

 

Support PAC
Influence (see
Q3 instead)

 

Support TAC
Influence

 

Support Partner
Influence

 

Support
Business
Influence

 

Support Staff
Influence

 

Support Citizen
Influence

1 (com.-

unity)

1 (com.-

unity)

1

~1TF

 

Support Other
Influence

 

 

1 (politi—

cians)

 

 

 

1
(governor)

 

1

(governor)

 

145

 

Table 7.4: PAC Role Consensus Table

 

00:30me
a H.918 OLE

No/ NV
(not

visible)
but Y-
role

only

Legits

IRR—

Y subtle

Y-role
only
NY

NV

N (no
vote)

Y-Com
& Bd.

 

OH VOGOHm: mm 0%“—

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

Y

 

3003a
aun— woamam as U<m

Yat

first—
now
con-flict
of inter-
est

Others

 

u>mu3=umoao~ bum
Boga—SO and U<m

No (N) Others

NY

(not

yet-will
W)

Y

 

My: 3
32093 at?“ U<m

 

My:
3 933 \mEoocoo

=82 was... 05

Y

 

umasm
e 5: was... 05

 

:—
89¢ actuate—A

30w Odd

Y

 

 

Susannah

 

PAC Members

 

AN Yes(Y) Y

 

BO

 

ER
GT

 

 

HU

 

 

 

 

LY
MZ

 

 

NA

 

OB

 

PC

 

 

SE

 

UL

 

XO

 

 

 

146

 

guest?
a 8%.: 9E

NV

NV

Y-to

harm
IRR

 

 

Ow VOGQ—wm— mm U<AH

 

 

3003:”
“on museum «5 U<m

 

o>fiuucowoumou :8
983980 ..«E 043

 

 

 

My: 3
32093 may“ 04n—

 

 

:—
3 303 \mfioocou

:82 mass. SE

 

 

Onasm
3 ME swat: oi

 

 

:—
89¢ Gavan—~85

sow oi

 

disempower the board, the “legitimate” decision-makers.

 

 

mugged—

 

IRR Stafl'
DU

 

 

EV

 

FWY

 

MD

 

PAC Observations

 

 

 

IRR Board

 

HY HY sees the PAC and others as political rewards and their intent is to

 

 

147

7 .3 PAC MEDIA RELEASE

 

NEWS RELEASE
| R O N R A N G E For immediate release: February 18, 2004
R I‘ For more information, please contact:
@8011 C68 Jack LaVoy, Director of Marketing,
Communications, & External Affairs,

Advancmg regional growth. 2184444400

Positions available on

Iron Range Resources Partners Advisory Committee

Iron Range Resources is looking for interested citizens with a diversity of backgrounds
and experience to serve on its Partners Advisory Committee. Eight individuals are
needed to fill current vacancies. The available positions are open to all residents of the
Taconite Assistance Area (TAA) and will be selected by Commissioner Sandy Layman.
Each appointment is for a three-year term, which is renewable for an additional term.

The committee meets bi-monthly on the second Thursday of the month from 10:00 am.
to 12:00 noon. Meetings are generally held at the Iron Range Resources offices in
Eveleth. Members are reimbursed for mileage.

Comprised of 20 citizens of the TAA, the committee acts as a sounding board to the
Commissioner and provides feedback and input from a citizen stakeholder perspective.

“The Partners Advisory Committee plays an important role in our effort to enhance
communication between the office of the Commissioner of Iron Range Resources and the
residents of the Taconite Assistance Area,” said Layman.

Those interested in seeking appointment to the committee Should send a resume and
cover letter explaining why they would like to serve and what they believe they can

contribute to the committee to Commissioner Sandy Layman, Iron Range Resources,
PO. Box 441, Eveleth, MN 55734. Applications are due by Friday, March 19, 2004.

-END-

148

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