Sunday will be the first anniversary of the day Indian
Motorcycle closed its doors.
Sunday will be the first anniversary of the day Indian Motorcycle closed its doors. Local advocates and officials in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration are working to make it the last.
Stellican Ltd., a British firm that bought the Indian brand in July, appears to be taking its time in deciding where in the U.S. to build its new motorcycles, but California isn’t slacking on its sales pitch.
Florida, Alabama and Springfield, Mass. have also been named as contenders. Although Springfield was Indian’s birthplace and home from 1901 to 1953, the city has not launched any campaign to bring it back. Alabama’s top economic development official, however, described his recruitment efforts for Indian as “aggressive.” Florida economic development officials could not be reached for comment.
Bill Lindsteadt, executive director of the Gilroy Economic Development Corporation, has been working for about a month-and-a-half with an ad-hoc committee he established to bring Indian back to Gilroy, where Indian bikes were built from 1999 until September 2003. That committee includes local heavyweights like Rey Sotelo and George Nobile, a pair of custom bike builders and former Indian executives, but Lindsteadt said he has been looking for special help from Jim Bentley, a former Indian public-relations associate from Southern California who happens to be a personal friend of Schwarzenegger.
“I think we got as much chance … as the other areas,” Lindsteadt said Wednesday, “but they’ve got more flexibility with what they can do with their local and state taxes than we do.”
Schwarzenegger has not yet put in a personal phone call to Stellican partners Stephen Julius and David Wright, a spokesman for him said Wednesday. Numerous sources, however, say there has been continuous contact between Stellican, Schwarzenegger’s office and David Crane, the governor’s special assistant on economic affairs.
A call from the famous actor-turned-governor might or might not sway Stellican’s decision, according to Mark Mosher, of the California Commission for Jobs and Economic Growth, which Schwarzenegger established. The state’s first step is to determine whether Stellican has the money to do what it says it wants to do. Mosher didn’t know the findings on this yet. If Stellican’s aims are realistic, then Mosher said he will try to recruit them, calling upon the governor’s influence if necessary.
The governor is revving up a national campaign to “sell California” – to quote his January State of the State speech. Billboards in other states show his picture and the words, “Arnold says California wants your business.”
Schwarzenegger owns at least one Indian motorcycle, according to his staff. He once came to Gilroy to pick up one the company gave him as a promotion, and he rode another in last summer’s “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.”
Lindsteadt’s ad-hoc group has given Stellican a recruitment package listing Gilroy’s advantages as a factory location. He refused to say what those advantages are, for fear his counterparts in competing states would try to one-up them.
Among Gilroy’s more obvious advantages are the presence of a skilled workforce that made Indians for five years. Strikes against the city are its high labor costs, high development impact fees and lack of a redevelopment slush fund.
