Grassroots economic development

Rebuilding Main Streets from the ground up

By FRITZ MAYER

SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — Can an economic development strategy that worked miracles in Bangladesh and elsewhere in Asia be successfully implemented in Sullivan County? The Grameen Bank has been giving micro loans to the rural poor since the 1980s. What’s unique about the loans is that they require no collateral and they serve a market that no established financial institutions were interested in.

In other words, according to information on the bank’s web site, “Grameen Bank methodology is almost the reverse of the conventional banking methodology. Conventional banking is based on the principle that the more you have, the more you can get. In other words, if you have little or nothing, you get nothing.”

Micro loans are part of a strategy that a handful of development professionals in Sullivan County have put forward as an economic development plan for the county. Glenn Pontier, the program director of Sullivan Renaissance, said that the micro loan aspect of the plan might be used to help a person who wanted to start a painting business buy ladders and brushes. Or it might help a person who wanted to start a cleaning business buy cleaning supplies. The micro loans would be limited to $1,500.

Another part of the development program would be the Main Street Incubator and Small Business Portal, which would provide assistance and services to small startup companies. Terri Ward, president and CEO of the Sullivan County Chamber of Commerce, said the portal would work directly with new small businesses to usher them through some of the rough spots of launching such a venture.

The hope is that if these two elements were successful, they could, at some time in the future, lead some of the micro entrepreneurs to repopulate some of the empty storefronts in the county’s villages and hamlets.

The plan, which has been dubbed the Local Small Business Development Stimulus Package, was concocted by Pontier; Ward; Richard Sush, a community organizer for Renaissance; Laura Quigley, board director of Sullivan County Workforce Development; and Heinrich Strauch, the executive director of the Liberty Community Development Corporation.

The group estimated that the three-year cost of developing such a program would be about $850,000 and the members went to the Sullivan County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) on April 14 to make a pitch for some help. By all accounts, the members of the IDA greeted the presentation with interest, but there is a question as to how much the agency could give concrete support to the plan.

Alan Scott, CEO of the IDA, said that the agency would research the ways it might be able to help. But he said the agency, which grants tax incentives to companies and administers a small business revolving loan fund, would be limited by the state laws under which the agency operates. He said, for instance, he didn’t think the IDA could be involved in a micro-loan program.

Pontier and other members of the group have also had discussions about the plan with Tim McCausland, president and CEO of the Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development, who has also expressed a desire to hear more.

Ward said the effort evolved from casual meetings of the members of the group in what she called essentially “gripe sessions” about some of the services that are lacking in the community, and those sessions evolved to the point where the plan was created.

Pontier said that some of his own experiences played into the process. He said he has trouble getting a carpenter or painter to work on his home, but with unemployment being what it is, there must be people in the community who would be eager to enter these sorts of businesses if they had a chance—so what can a community do to make that chance happen?

He said the program points to a fundamental question. “This is a question of whether we can govern ourselves. Can we run our own lives? Are we capable of creating the kinds of enterprises that we need? Aren’t there enough clever people in Jeffersonville or Monticello or Narrowsburg that if they had a little bit of resources they could open the stores that the community needs? If the answer is ‘we can’t do this,’ we’re in big trouble. If we’re no longer capable of growing our own food or running our own stores, or starting our own businesses, we’re in deeper trouble than anyone has even imagined.”

Pontier is not ready to admit that is the case.

He and others invite members of the community to give suggestions, comments or other input. Pontier and Sush can be reached at 845/295-2445, Ward at 791-4200 and Strauch at 292-8202.