Madore: No. The reason is we haven’t accomplished [our goals] yet. But I can tell you that we don’t hear the stories of the businesses that decide not to move here. We don’t hear the stories of the businesses who decide not to expand. I can only tell you our ability to gain that information is very limited. I know from my own experience operating US Digital that twice during our history we attempted to grow and we stopped because the city of Vancouver wanted hundreds of thousands of dollars in permit fees. So we decided it wasn’t worth it.
People say, ‘where has this (removing development fees for job creation) been done before?’ I have not been able to find any place where they’ve done that. It is kind of a courageous or crazy move in some people’s eyes. It’s dramatic, but that’s how you get dramatic results. I’m also an inventor. I don’t care if it hasn’t been done it before. Quite often you are the first one to do something because you see an opportunity and others will follow. So right now I hope to pass this to turn loose Clark County and we will see over the next several years what happens.
Hopefully we can have the courageousness to [eliminate fees] and to see how it works. It’s an experiment. Six months from now we’ll look at it, and if it’s not working we’ll turn it off. If it is working, keep doing it because it’s a good thing… Even if we just break even, in other words we get back what it costs the county to do this, that translates to about 4,400 new jobs in Clark County.
Q: What can you do to help stop the divisiveness we see in local politics these days?
Madore: I give my cell phone out to everybody. In fact, it’s 360-601-3056. I had a phone conversation with a gal the other day and she just started venting. When I finally got a word in, I told her I would be very happy to listen if she just wants to vent. That’s call type number one. I also offered her call type number two, because in her venting she said, ‘I don’t understand this’ and ‘I don’t understand that.’ If you really want to understand we have to move to call type number two, which is to ask me questions and allow me to answer. And maybe I can ask you a question and allow you to answer. Because that’s the only way that understanding is going to happen.
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