Advertisement A brief outline of the findings of the Holmen Economic Development Preparedness Index Survey, was presented to the Holmen Area Commerce and Civic Association last month. The survey questionnaire was sent to 109 members of HACCA and a handful of other Holmen residents.
The study was conducted by Karl Green, community resource development educator for the University of Wisconsin Extension La Crosse County.
Green said, only 17 people, or 12 percent of those receiving the survey responded.
The survey was designed to assess Holmen’s readiness to retain existing businesses, attract new businesses and residents and grow small businesses within the community.
A major disconnect between the village and the business community was revealed by high levels of disagreement with or lack of knowledge of most statements contained in the survey.
Green highlighted some of his concerns. The results show that most of the business community is not aware of the community development office with the county and are unaware of the La Crosse Area Development Corporation.
Voicing one of his major concerns, Green said, “You don’t know if there is a local economic fund that is part of the county’s economic development fund. And you don’t know if there is a plan for tourism or marketing within the village.”
Despite some areas of concern, Green said he was not really surprised by the level of ‘don’t know’ responses. “It depends on who answered the survey,” he said. “If it was residents who are not involved in business activities, they might not know a lot of the answers.” While the survey was distributed to business members of HACCA, they could have been forwarded to area friends or relatives.
Village President John Chapman was concerned about the low response rate because while the percentages look huge, they represent a small number of people. “You’ve got to keep things in perspective. If 47 percent say something, that might represent only five people. I really applaud the economic development committee, Karl Green and Brian Fukuda for the work they did. It’s too bad we didn’t get a better response. They put a lot of work into it.”
HACCA President Roxanne Reynolds said she was shocked at the low response rate as well.
Nevertheless, 41 percent of respondents did not know if community leaders work together with other economic development related professionals or organizations and 41 percent agreed they did. A full 47 percent did not know if Holmen is a member of a regional organization engaged in economic development efforts.
Forty seven percent disagreed with the statement, “Our community has an effective local economic development corporation.” Another 47 percent disagreed with the statement “key local business leaders are sufficiently involved in economic activities.”
Another 41 percent disagreed with the statement “our village board has a pro-business attitude and the board actively supports economic development activities through funding, policies and programs.”
Reynolds said she was shocked so many disagreed with the statement. “I would hope that those people who strongly disagree or the few who agree get active in village government,” Reynolds said. “Come to HACCA meetings and tell us what you think. I would love that.”
Forty-seven percent disagreed with the statement that Holmen is usually responsive to the problems of existing businesses and 29 percent said they didn’t know.
Those perceptions concern Ryan Olson, a village board member who chairs its Economic Development and Tourism Committee and member of HACCA.
“We need improvement,” Olson said. “We knew that going in. That was the purpose: to show using quantitative data as opposed to anecdotal that the perception is out there. The proof is in the pudding and we’ve got to react to that. Some of that is through education.”
Chapman agreed with Olson, saying, “One of the reasons for the survey was to see what we can do better. If we’re not doing things right, we need to know. If we didn’t care we wouldn’t do it.”
