Greater MSP CEO Michael Langley and board Chairman Richard Davis, CEO at U.S. Bancorp, will listen carefully when they meet soon with Minneapolis City Council Member Lisa Goodman and others. Goodman led dissident council members who rejected all but $10,000 of the city's $125,000 contribution to Greater MSP's annual budget — in a surprise move on the final day of 2017 budget deliberations.
The 10-1 council vote could not be derailed by 11th-hour pleas from Greater MSP staff and supporters, or a chagrined Mayor Betsy Hodges, a Greater MSP board member and supporter, along with St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman. Council members Goodman and Andrew Johnson, a one-time small business owner, resent that Langley's research-networking-and-coordinating organization claims credit for so much development in Minneapolis, in the upticking economy of the last five years. Yet the group has little to do with much of the heavy lifting. Or at least they don't see it.
"If Greater MSP was working on business relocation in Minneapolis to north Minneapolis, that might be something," Goodman said. "But I reject Greater MSP claiming credit for things that had many hands, and that they offer subsidies to lure one company from one location to another.
"They don't need our measly $125,000 to work with us," Goodman said last week. "They are a big organization with a budget in the millions. I didn't do it to be a brat. I'll work with them if they really want to work with us."
Langley, salaried at $515,000, leads a regional development business of 22 people with a $6 million budget, about 75 percent of which is paid by the private sector. Greater MSP evolved from a business-group conclusion several years ago that there was no cohesive plan to retain and attract business.
MSP's critics know it as a profligate spender on travel and lavish annual meetings with open bars to schmooze local government, businesses and nonprofit executives. And they accuse Langley of claiming too much credit for deals like Wells Fargo's decision to consolidate in two new buildings near the U.S. Bank Stadium in the expanding east end of the loop. That was more then-Mayor R.T. Rybak, along with developer Ryan Cos, and came after Wells Fargo, which employs thousands in Minneapolis, hinted it was looking around.
Council members also cite a disputed auction between two suburbs for a facility for Prime Therapeutics that critics said was conducted by Greater MSP. The organization declined to comment.
For better or worse, economic development sometimes boils down to a bake-off. And Minneapolis, the state and other municipalities long have played that game.