The Community Economic Development Strategy Committee (“CEDS Committee”) met in 2021 in order to prepare the 2021-2025 Community Economic Development Strategy (“2021-2025 CEDS”) for submission to the US Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA).
Problems and Purpose
Regional issues considered by the CEDS Committee included a decline in the working age population and a rise in the senior population; regional average income significantly below the national average; and unemployment persisting from the 2008 economic recession. The CEDS Committee also identified scarcity in broadband internet availability and electric vehicle charging stations as priorities to address [6]. The CEDS Committee met to draft a CEDS by analyzing the economic status of the region, identifying appropriate economic initiatives, and establishing a framework to evaluate progress on those initiatives. Following the drafting process, CUPPAD submitted the 2021-2025 CEDS for review by the EDA.
Background History and Context
A CEDS is an economic development plan for a region. Its key elements are basic economic information on the region; an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats presented by the region (SWOT analysis); a strategic direction and action plan that builds from the SWOT analysis and other regional plans; and a framework to evaluate implementation of the strategic direction and action plan [15].
Completion of a CEDS is required for a region to maintain the designation of Economic Development District (EDD) [15]. This status is important because it makes the EDD eligible for funding from the EDA for the purposes of infrastructure and planning [1].
CUPPAD was established in 1968 by Michigan state legislation as the EDD for Alger, Delta, Dickinson, Marquette, Menominee, and Schoolcraft counties in Michigan’s upper peninsula. CUPPAD assists the 93 units of government that exist within this region— which include counties, townships, and the Hannahville Indian Community— with planning activities and accessing federal funding opportunities [6].
CUPPAD was created by state legislation in 1968 as one of fourteen state-designated planning and development regions. [2] Subsequently CUPPAD carried out these processes every five years, to maintain its status as an EDD. The meetings in 2021 followed the expiration of the 2016-2020 CEDS, and the CEDS Committee continued to hold meetings in 2022 and 2023 to discuss implementation of the 2021-2025 CEDS and future plans [3].
Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities
The 2021-2025 CEDS planning process was organized by CUPPAD and funded by the EDA [6]. The CUPPAD Executive Committee maintained the authority to approve or reject the CEDS as drafted by the CEDS Committee. If the CEDS Committee meetings that were held in 2021 matched the format of CEDS Committee meetings held in 2022, a CUPPAD employee held a central role in establishing meeting agendas and facilitating discussion during meetings [7,8,9]. CUPPAD has a team of five hired staff members, who have varying roles, responsibilities, and areas of expertise. [2] The commission is governed by 37-members with an 8-member Executive Committee. These commissioners come from all over the region, with representation from each county, and bring their knowledge, expertise, and leadership to the everyday activities of CUPPAD. [2]
Participant Recruitment and Selection
The participants in the first three meetings included members of the CEDS Committee. A recording of a 2022 CEDS Committee meeting indicates that the 2021 meetings may also have been attended by elected officials and representatives of government bodies and advocacy groups.
As of September 2021, the CEDS Committee’s 24 members included representatives of local planning and investment bodies, state government agencies, state universities, and labor and arts advocacy groups. Most of the CEDS Committee members appear to have served on the CEDS Committee during the drafting of the previous 2015-2020 CEDS but at least four members were new to the committee [4]. While details of the process by which CEDS Committee members were recruited has not been conclusively identified, a recording of a March 2022 CEDS Committee meeting suggests that recruitment is informal, with existing members encouraged to recruit outsiders who may be interested in participating [7]. Based on this suggestion it is seen that the targeted recruitment method was utilized. No incentives were offered to the participants.
Based on each member’s area of expertise, the CEDS Committee was broken up into subcommittees to individually address each of the following priorities:
- Resilient Regional Economy
- Talented Workforce
- Modern Infrastructure and Technology
- Excellence in Education
- Safe and Efficient Transportation [2]
Between December 2020 and the submission of the 2021-2025 CEDS in September 2021, Vibrant and Healthy Communities was added as a sixth priority and a corresponding subcommittee was created [6]. Details on how these subcommittees operated were not identified.
The wider public was invited to comment on a draft of the 2021-2025 CEDS in July 2021. CUPPAD made the draft available on its website and publicized the draft with a social media post on X [5].
The fourth and final meeting included the eight members of CUPPAD’s Executive Committee. It has not been identified whether the fourth meeting was attended by the CEDS Committee or other individuals.
Methods and Tools Used
In December 2020, CEDS Committee members were invited to contribute to a SWOT analysis through Mural, an internet-based collaboration platform. CEDS Committee members used Mural to identify and rank strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats presented by the region’s economy. The CEDS Committee then collectively discussed the results in a meeting and worked together to re-rank the entries and to consider action steps. Mural was used in order to overcome challenges to collaboration posed by the COVID-19 pandemic [6]. The CEDS Committee process is similar to the participatory development process method. Both of these process’ focus on ensuring citizen involvement in decisions around development.
What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation
The first three meetings were conducted by Zoom, and the fourth meeting was conducted both in-person and over Zoom [2]. CUPPAD published brief descriptions of the content of each meeting, as well as PowerPoints used in the March and August meetings and an agenda for the August meeting. These sources do not indicate whether the CEDS Committee adopted explicit procedures or rules to structure their meetings [3].
The March 18, 2020, meeting was held virtually using Zoom [2]. The meeting began with the introduction of new team members. Then, the participants were briefed on updates to several opportunities to apply for federal funding designated for COVD-19 recovery. After this briefing, the participants focused on the 2021-2025 CEDS. They clarified action items and strategies and considered new goals. The participants specifically discussed matters including talent attraction and retention, manufacturing, and internet access. Finally, participants were invited to share relevant updates before the meeting was concluded [4].
The June 24, 2020, meeting was also held virtually using Zoom. During the meeting, CEDS Committee members discussed progress on the draft CEDS and reviewed, clarified, and altered goals and objectives. CEDS Committee members also discussed various steady state and responsive economic resilience initiatives. Steady state initiatives prepare communities for future economic shocks, while responsive initiatives assist communities in recovering from economic shocks [15]. The meeting also included a presentation by an executive of Highline, an internet provider, concerning its progress in providing fiber internet access to the Upper Peninsula [2].
The August 12, 2020, meeting was held in a hybrid format, with participants attending in person and virtually using Zoom. The meeting included an overview of different funding opportunities provided by the EDA through the American Rescue Plan Act, including characteristics, eligibility criteria, and relevant considerations for each program. The participants also discussed the state of the region’s economy and recent events, which led to discussion of electric vehicle charging stations. Members were referred to an upcoming webinar, Planning and Zoning for Electric Vehicles, and an electric vehicles readiness workshop held by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Leaks, and Energy for Upper Peninsula government and business leaders. CUPPAD’s description of the August 12 meeting also references the processing and inclusion of public comments on the draft CEDS, but it is unclear whether this occurred during or before the meeting [3].
The September 23, 2020, meeting included CUPPAD’s Executive Committee voting on adoption of a draft CEDS [3]. Further details regarding the content of this meeting were not identified.
In July 2021, CUPPAD additionally invited the wider public to provide comments on a draft of the 2021-2025 CEDS by email or mail, announcing this invitation with a social media post on X [5].
Some information about the structure of the 2021 meetings may be inferred from CEDS Committee meetings held in 2022, as CUPPAD published video recordings of several of these meetings. A March 2022 CEDS Committee meeting was facilitated by Ryan Soucy, the Senior Community and Economic Development Planner at CUPPAD. In that meeting, Soucy facilitated introductions, assisted a guest speaker with fielding questions, and conducted his own presentation.
Of the 90 minutes devoted to the meeting, approximately 15 minutes were utilized for group input following the guest speaker’s presentation and another 10 minutes were utilized for group discussion at the end of the meeting, with the remaining 64 minutes filled by presentations by Soucy and the guest speaker [7]. This general structure was followed by CEDS Committee meetings held in May 2022 and September 2023 [8,9].
Influence, Outcomes, and Effects
The 2021 meetings may be considered to have been ultimately successful in the broadest sense because the draft CEDS was unanimously approved by the CUPPAD executive committee at the September meeting and was subsequently approved by the EDA [3, 13].
The extent to which CEDS Community members used meetings to contribute to the content of the 2021-2025 CEDS is less clear. Using Mural to invite input for a SWOT analysis allowed CEDS Committee members to contribute to a formative stage of the strategy, as the EDA states that a CEDS action plan should proceed logically from the factors identified in the SWOT analysis [15]. Potential positive effects of the use of Mural may be presented in the goals listed in the 2021-2025 CEDS, as they appear to align with factors identified during the SWOT analysis [6].
Analysis and Lessons Learned
Assessing the 2021 CEDS Committee meetings is difficult due to the limited amount of publicly available information concerning the meetings. However, certain aspects of the meetings appear to reflect principles advocated by scholars in the field of communication, while others may signify opportunities for CUPPAD to improve its process. [17]
A key area in which CUPPAD may have improved the 2021 meetings centers on the opportunity to participate. A video of a CEDS Committee meeting in March 2022 indicates that membership to the CEDS Committee is open [7]. Searches of open sources, including CUPPAD’s website and social media profiles, identified no evidence that CUPPAD has publicly advertised CEDS Committee membership or otherwise published information on recruitment procedures.
Gastil and colleagues support providing broad opportunities for participation to all stakeholders [11] and Nabatchi and Leighninger specifically cite concerns about the marginalization of low-income residents in development planning [12]. Improvement of the CEDS process may therefore involve ensuring that all potentially interested parties, particularly those who may have been excluded from previous CEDS processes, are aware of the opportunity to join the CEDS committee. [17]
Another area of improvement that CUPPAD may have addressed is ensuring that the perspectives of the CEDS Committee members present at the meetings were shared. Gastil and colleagues emphasize that deliberation should be democratic and should make a conscious effort to combat entrenched inequalities while emphasizing inclusion [11]. If the 2021 meetings followed the format of the 2022 meetings for which video recordings are available, speaking time was dominated by guest speakers and CUPPAD representatives. CUPPAD may therefore improve the CEDS meeting by following Nabatchi and Leighninger’s advice to build participatory design into planning meetings and minimize the domination of meetings by “talking heads” [12].
Using Mural allowed CEDS Committee members to establish a base of information and identify a varied set of solutions, steps advocated by Gastil and colleagues [11]. Research also suggests that use of collaborative tools like Mural can lead to positive outcomes. In a study that compared in-person collaborative workshops with semi-virtual collaborative workshops in which participants utilized Mural, Redlich et al. found that participants in the semi-virtual workshops exhibited comparably high levels of shared understanding, satisfaction, and perceived effectiveness to those who participated in the in-person workshops [14].
At the same time, Gastil reports that computer-based group decision support systems (GDSS), with which Mural shares many elements, may have the effect of disabling participants that have poor computer skills or are physically less able to participate in a discussion through a computer. As the prospect of disabling participants through use of a GDSS can be mitigated by providing those participants with adequate support, further assessment of CUPPAD’s use of Mural would require information on whether such supports were offered [10].
References
[1] Cape Cod Commission. What does it mean to be an Economic Development District? (2021, April 30). https://capecodcommission.org/about-us/newsroom/what-does-it-mean-to-be-an-economic-development-district/
[2] Central Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Regional Commission. (n.d.). CEDS. cuppad.org/ceds; archived at Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/) > cuppad.org/ceds > CEDS; citing a capture dated 26 September 2021.
[3] Central Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Regional Commission. (n.d.). CEDS. cuppad.org/ceds
[4] Central Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Regional Commission. (2021x, March 18). CEDS meeting #1 [PowerPoint slides]. https://cuppad.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/CEDS-meeting-1.pptx
[5] Central Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Regional Commission. [@CUPPAD]. (2021, July 13). Our Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy is available for public review for the next 30 days. Comments and suggestions can be [Post]. X. https://twitter.com/CUPPAD/status/1415033159960436746
[6] Central Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Regional Commission. (2021). Central Upper Peninsula Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy. https://cuppad.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/CEDS-Final-Draft-September-2021-Adopted.pdf
[7] Central Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Regional Commission. (2022, March 1). 2022 CEDS Meeting #1 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf0vZajc0jM
[8] Central Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Regional Commission. (2022, May 31). CEDS Meeting #2 May 31 2022 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOsCcmpy5aY
[9] Central Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Regional Commission. (2022, September 27). Central UP CEDS Meeting #4 9-27-22 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cys8fkRyBQo
[10] Gastil, J. (2010). The group in society. Sage Publications.
[11] Gastil, J., Knobloch, K. R., & Kelly, M. (2012). Evaluating deliberative public events and projects. In T. Nabatchi et al. (Eds.), Democracy in motion: Evaluating the practice and impact of deliberative civic engagement. Oxford University Press, pp. 205-230
[12] Nabatchi, T., & Leighninger, M. (2015). Public participation for 21st century democracy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
[13] National Association of Development Organizations. (n.d.) Economic Development District (EDD) Interactive Map. https://www.nado.org/eddmap/
[14] Redlich, Beke, et al. “Towards Semi-Virtual Design Thinking - Creativity in Dispersed Multicultural and Multidisciplinary Innovation Project Teams.” Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 1 Mar. 2018, scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/49977
[15] U.S. Economic Development Administration. (2016) Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) Content Guidelines: Recommendations for Creating an Impactful CEDS. https://www.eda.gov/archives/2016/ceds/files/CEDS-Content-Guidelines-full.pdf
[16] U.S. Economic Development Administration. (n.d.) Economic Development Districts. https://www.eda.gov/about/economic-development-glossary/edd
[17] Millard, Richard. “Central Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Regional Commission’s Preparation Meetings” Unpublished manuscript, last modified April 8, 2024. PDF file.
Notes
The first version of this case entry was written by Richard Millard, a Master of Public Service candidate at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, and then edited. The views expressed in the entry are those of the authors, editors, or cited sources, and are not necessarily those of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.