This Week with Mayor Brian Treece

Columbia Mayor Brian Treece has been on-the-job for just a little more than 100 days.

We took a look at some of his campaign promises vs. his deliverables Thursday night, but on “This Week” Mayor Treece talks to us about economic development, the recently-passed lodging tax and his initiative on medical tourism.

Here is a transcript of our conversation:

Mayor Brian Treece: We have a lot of health care providers her and those hotels don’t have any problems filling their rooms on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night, especially with the great events and football games we have here. But we have a lot of health care patients that come to Columbia for a three day total hip surgery or three day total knee, that I think the hotel community, our airport, our healthcare providers, our convention visitors bureau, can really do a better job at rolling out that red carpet for those patients that in turn help fill our room nights and really create Columbia as a destination for healthcare services. They are at least bringing their spouses or caregiver with them. But I think anything that we can do to better connect the convention visitors bureau with the hospital schedulers and our hotel owners, to identify, ” hey we have vacancies this night and we’ll offer medical rate on this night. We will offer free transportation from, or free shuttle from the hotel to the hospital so you don’t have to worry about parking.” mayo has a great model here, they actually have a concierge at the airport terminal where you can check into the hospital when your flight lands there in Rochester. You know they are innovative techniques like that that I think could really help position Columbia in in the future. But also getting our healthcare providers working together because that’s a major component. Probably a third leg of Columbia’s economy that we can really help promote and aggregate. As mayor I certainly serve on the Missouri innovation center now. The life science incubator and they are incubating several small businesses. A lot of those small businesses though go on and leave for St. Louis and Dallas to be closer to their products and closer to their marketplace. And we are investing a lot of entrepreneurial and start-up money to incubate those small businesses because I want to make sure we have that next stage that next research lab part whether that’s larger wet lab space or a retail footprint that can really help keep those home grown businesses here. A lot of those are in the life sciences, equine science, that healthcare marketplace that can really, again, position Columbia well into the future in that new economy.

Joey Parker: From the smaller businesses to the much larger businesses, IBM. We’ve talked to you about this. We’ve been working with this story for quite some time. It’s very difficult for us to get information from IBM. The state says IBM has reached four hundred new jobs in Columbia to maintain eligibility in the program. Is IBM cooperating?

Brian Treece: they are. I have met with the manager at that data center. I’ve communicated the concerns of the community and they really encouraged them to be more communicative with the jobs that they are adding. The good news is, I think you are going to see some of the job growth there as IBM continues to shift its model to more of a cloud based model. And the good news is when you talk about the millennials that we have in the community that is a prime recruiting ground for those types of jobs right there at IBM. I was also proud to go to foo’s last week for a ribbon cutting. They will soon be announcing that all Oscar Meyer hotdogs are going to be manufactured in Columbia Missouri. And do now we are going to have a new export in Columbia. I think by next week you are going to see a positive vote to help recruit dana corporation which plans to add one hundred forty new jobs over the next few years.

Joey Parker: On the Dana Products project, how will you work to hold them accountable to the jobs they promise.

Brian Treece: That incentive package includes a clawback provision so that if they don’t create the jobs that are promised, there’s an opportunity to recover those assets. And it’s important to note this is a fifty percent property tax abatement on about a 39 million investment company. And so they’re the ones that are putting up all of the money. It’s not only a major investment in terms of their manufacturing line, I think in turn it’s really going to create an opportunity for that plant, which is already one of the best in the twenty three Dana plants in the country, to really attract additional work.

Joey Parker: So you welcome Dana, IBM, any company that is going to make an investment in the city of Columbia, going to hire people, going to work to better the community, but you also want them to be true to their word.

Brian Treece: Oh, absolutely. And these are great corporate citizens. As I said to the management at Kraft. Not only are they showcasing Columbia with every product that they ship, but a lot of that product is donated to the central Missouri food bank. That goes to serve. I think people would be surprised to know what they do both in terms of product but also what they do and what they’re employees contribute, in terms of volunteer hours. And I could say the same thing about all of our companies. I was at shelter insurance last week and they have hundreds of employees that volunteer on the Boys and Girls Club board of directors and United Way. And I really think that community spirit is what makes Columbia unique.