Dawidziak: When will LI work together?

Michael Dawidziak is a political consultant and pollster.

'Long Island Is Hobbling Its Own Recovery." That's the title of a terrific op-ed piece I just read, written by real estate developer Vincent Polimeni and David Richardson, the former secretary of the Nassau-Suffolk Building Trades Council. They accurately pointed out that hostile governments and local NIMBY groups are repelling business.

The essay detailed many of the factors hampering economic development on Long Island. The problems seem bleak. What is even more alarming is that Newsday published the piece in 1991.

It's shocking to see how little has changed in the two intervening decades. All of the roadblocks to economic expansion that were written about then -- the glacial pace of zoning changes, community hostility, tight lending practices -- are just as true today. Indeed, the article could have been written today. Not answering the alarm bell back then has left Long Island even less prepared to answer it now.

And the stakes are much higher now, because this economic downturn has been more severe. In 1991, the country was in the middle of what proved to be a brief recession. It lasted just long enough to cost President George H.W. Bush re-election; soon the economy was back cooking again. Wall Street was soaring, portfolios were growing, and house prices were booming. Everybody was making money, so why bother addressing the troublesome obstacles to building a solid economic foundation on Long Island?

Fast-forward to 2008, when the roof caved in. We all found out too late that the economic boom was built on a rotten foundation. Not only was our nation's gross domestic product shrinking, but much of it was made up of financial gains from moving money around. Not only were these transactions not "product," but they created no real value and no significant employment.

Locally, the results have been devastating. House prices tumbled with a corresponding glut of inventory. Many good-sized companies moved, downsized or shut their doors.

We could have used those 20 years to establish solid fiscal policies and practices on Long Island. We didn't, and we are paying the price for it. The question now is: Are we finally going to answer the alarm bell we've been ignoring for so long? The 1991 op-ed documented a historic union of labor and business management calling for "a thoughtful economic development program from all levels of Long Island government." Together, they were reaching out for a partnership with government and neighborhood groups. They didn't get it.

The time is long overdue to remove these roadblocks and implement real plans for economic development. Instead of constantly trying to figure out ways to make things tougher on businesses, government needs to streamline. If a company wants to invest in a county, town or village, government's first question should be, "How can we help?" This will require a sea change in the attitudes of many involved in planning and zoning, and that can only begin at the top. Elected officials must show leadership.

For their own survival, civic associations and neighborhood groups need to work in a nonhostile manner to attract businesses, jobs and development to their communities. Unemployment, empty homes for sale and boarded storefronts don't enhance anybody's neighborhood.

Another problem cited in the 1991 piece was "a tight credit policy by the banks that has withered nearly every branch of business and prolonged the recession." If the banks' credit policy was tight back then, it's positively rigid now.

Twenty years ago we ignored one call to start working together for true economic development, and where did that get us? Is that a bell I hear?