Kodak and Town of Greece Build a Strong Corporate-Community Relationship

In a continuing effort to reduce costs, Kodak was seeking a tax reassessment on one of its primary manufacturing facilities, located in the Town of Greece, New York. Kodak was also seeking business permits for expansion and modification of its facilities, and the town's assistance in contributing to infrastructure costs for a proposed Kodak-owned business park. The Town of Greece was seeking to avoid dramatic reductions in tax revenue, and to minimize adverse impacts on non-Kodak taxpayers.

The relationship between the Town of Greece and Kodak was critical to both parties. Kodak was Greece's largest corporate taxpayer, and more than one-third of the town's residents were Kodak employees and retirees and their families. When tax negotiations faltered and Kodak initiated a lawsuit against the town, numerous aspects of the Kodak-Greece relationship were threatened.

Process

The parties engaged Ki ThoughtBridge to assist them in coordinating negotiations between the Town and Kodak on a range of tax, development, and environmental issues. Ki ThoughtBridge conducted a range of diagnostic interviews with a variety of stakeholders, offering its analysis of the situation and recommendations for going forward. Ki ThoughtBridge then structured and facilitated a joint session with representatives of the town government, school district, fire district, neighborhood association and Kodak to launch the series of negotiations.

The session's purposes were to:

• Build inter- and intra-team relationships
• Enable the joint team to manage the upcoming complex negotiations in a creative and non-adversarial manner
• Develop a common understanding of the situation and the task
• Design a process and work plan for developing a solution

In the joint session, Ki ThoughtBridge focused the parties on their individual and joint interests and introduced tools and processes to overcome barriers and achieve resolution.

Result

With Ki ThoughtBridge's assistance, the parties crafted an agreement which linked the reduction of the assessed value of Kodak's existing property over the course of ten years to the development of a proposed business park on surplus Kodak land. The agreement involved neither dramatic shortfalls in the budgets of the local government, nor increases in property tax rates for other property owners in the town, and it assured normal consideration of Kodak's building permit requests.

During the negotiations that followed the joint launch, Ki ThoughtBridge facilitators remained strategic advisors to the parties and assisted in the parties' efforts to create a process that would enable them to build a strong corporate-community relationship. Since this critical negotation took place, the relationship has proved beneficial to both Kodak and the Town of Greece, and it has enabled them to resolve related issues as they occurred over time.