Greater Iowa City, Inc. seeks collaboration with Iowa City Council

Johnson County’s economic development organization, Greater Iowa City, Inc., is seeking a closer collaboration between the business community and the city of Iowa City by proposing a revitalization of Iowa City’s Council Economic Development Committee (CEDC). In a letter to the city dated Dec. 7, Greater Iowa City called for “greater understanding between the city and businesses” and for the CEDC to take a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to economic development. The letter included an invitation for Iowa City’s new Economic Development Coordinator, Rachel Kilburg Varley, to work at MERGE on a once-a-week basis to connect with teams and businesses, with the goal of partnering to “create small forums to bring together councilors and business leaders on specific local issues.” The letter stated that "(Greater Iowa City’s) goal is to create a more collaborative relationship between the city and business community, effectively communicate a business perspective to councilors, proactively pursue strategic economic development, and increase predictability so business owners can focus on their employees, products, and services rather than changing compliance requirements."

Mackenzie DeRoo, Greater Iowa City, Inc. senior director of advocacy, said the letter has elicited some positive feedback and action so far – on February 1, for example, Ms. Varley – with Greater Iowa City and the Home Builders Association – will be coordinating the programming for a forum at MERGE for developers to go over some recent changes made to residential building codes in Iowa City in order to “create a path for clear communication.” “Our businesses are a major piece of our city's success, and we want to bring people together around that,” said Ms. DeRoo. This spring, Greater Iowa City is adopting a model for improved regional collaboration by creating three innovation councils to guide its initiatives: economic development, business support and innovation, and community development. Each counsel will have co-chairs from both the public and private sectors, creating an opportunity for businesses that are invested in Greater Iowa City to have representation about the work it performs. “My goal from an advocacy perspective is to have those relationships with counselors established and subsystems in place, so that when one of those (innovation) councils comes forward and says, ‘this is the issue that we want to have represented,’ that we are ready to move on it,” said Ms. DeRoo. One of Greater Iowa City’s hallmarks is its inclusive membership model, which provides open access to every business and treats them as a member. “We are really eager for businesses to get involved,” said Ms. DeRoo. “We want businesses to invest financially, but even if that's not an option, there's so many other ways to get involved. The only way we really represent the business community is that we have the business community with us.”