Cooper says he is sensitive to those concerns and, armed with recommendations from the Pace Group, has begun to change the way the Spokane Area Economic Development Council does business. To help focus the economic development group's efforts, Cooper has chopped several programs from the agency's budget and laid off six people, including the organization's California recruiter. Cooper plans to go as far as Florida to find the kind of companies that will increase eastern Washington's prosperity. They're not pumping much through the economy. They're not out eating at restaurants and taking in a movie.
Government officials wonder why sales are down.
We've got to have people making money so they can spend it. People were fleeing Cooper moved to Spokane in 1986 and knows how dreary life can be when the economy slips into a recession. By the time he arrived, the excitement of Expo '74 had long since died and Spokane was a ghost town. Anxious to jump-start the economy, business leaders pooled their money to create Momentum, an economic development agency that would become the Spokane Area Economic Development Council's single largest donor. Cooper was hired to run the council, bringing respect and stability at a troubled time, says Pete Kerwien, manager of business development for Washington Water Power Co. and a past EDC chairman.