Wickenburg Business

New catering company shows off its stuff

Last night at the Town of Wickenburg's volunteer appreciation dinner Greg Calloway and his company Culinary Visions outdid themselves with food and presentation.  The dinner was fabulous and the beauty of the food table was a work of art.  Many people had seen my Sun article on the new business and took note that this was a new local business.  The quality of the food became the talk of the evening overshadowing the awards.  This was a great example of how a new business must make a good impression at start up.  It has to hit the ground running.  Your first impression could be your last impression if it is not good.  In this case, the first impression was great.

What is the truth?

Reading a piece in the Phoenix paper this morning made me realize how cautious we have to be when reading or listening to any news items.  It’s easy for any writer to slant news for a particular agenda.  “Mortgage foreclosures up ten times in the Phoenix market.” Very bad you say?  “Mortgage foreclosures much lower in Phoenix than the national average.” That sounds really good.  What’s the truth?

Both may be accurate but each certainly tells a different story.  The first is misleading because a couple of years ago the housing market was so hot that there were virtually no foreclosures in the Phoenix market.  Consequently, if you have 10 foreclosures, and then have 100 a couple of years later, the increase is a factor of ten but the actual number is still low and could represent a low total when compared to the rest of the country. 

What did we learn from this?  If we read something, we have to carefully read the whole story and sort out the truth.  Second, if we are in business we need to manage the news to make sure we tell a story with the best possible “spin.”

Free enterprise at work

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said on Tuesday that it will contract with local hospitals and other organizations to open as many as 400 in-store health clinics in the next two to three years.

Should current market forces continue, the world's largest retailer said up to 2,000 clinics could be in Wal-Mart stores over the next five to seven years.

As health care costs go up you know that it wouldn't be long for one of the country's most efficient companies to figure a way to bring the prices down for the consumer.  In many rural towns primary-care docs are unwilling to take Medicare patients saying that the reimbursement doesn't cover the costs.  I can guarantee that Wall Mart will take everyone because they will have figured a way to be more efficient and drive some of the bureaucracy out of health care delivery.

Watch for this trend to continue. Competition and the free-enterprise system will eventually lower health care costs as soon as long as competition is not trampled on by a monopoly.

Budget time

Budget season is here again for the Town of Wickenburg and it should spark interesting debate.  The budget takes a long and arduous route through staff, the finance committee, through Council work sessions, and finally to the whole council. Next Monday at 0900 it will have its first hearing at the council budget work session.

While most might think that budget stuff is dull, in fact it is probably one of the most important documents for the town.  This is where priorities are set.  Last year public safety won big with the council deciding to go to a paid fire department and add to the police department.  By spending money in that way there was little left for other priorities.

This year’s first draft again has money allocated to police and fire for more people with most other requests being turned down. There will probably be some rumblings in favor of an increase in the sales tax to meet some of the other requests.

Unfortunately in the halls of government there is little or no discussion on how to save money and operate more efficiently.  I honestly believe that most managers want to be efficient and get the most from their people, but unfortunately the system does not reward that.  In any bureaucracy if you can justify a larger budget and supervise more people you are deemed to be more important and deserve a greater raise.  That system rewards non-efficiency.  As a member of the finance committee I can attest to plenty of decisions having been made that are far from efficient.

I urge that people who want to have an influence on how our local government is run should attend Monday’s budget session.  See where they set priorities.  Watch your government at work.