MACKINAC ISLAND – Michigan is in crisis and to determine who is at fault, people need to look in the mirror, business leaders said at the opening function for the 2010 Detroit Regional Chamber conference.

But even as the business officials, including the head of the Michigan AFL-CIO, said all persons had to accept blame for overall failure, they also expressed frustration at state government for not moving ahead with a variety of programs that they said could help the state improve economically.

John Rakolta, CEO of the Detroit-based construction firm Walbridge, said there are at least four major efforts before the Legislature that could help boost jobs in the state, and have, to business eyes at least, been stalled by lawmakers. Those include the Detroit River International Crossing and the aerotropolis concept, both of which are before the Senate now.

Efforts to turn the state around since 2000 have been ineffectual, and it is not just failures in state government that account for that, Rakolta said. Business executives and labor leaders reached agreements that helped push labor costs, he said, and the top leadership of the auto companies reacted to each other instead of to changes in the marketplace.

The state is paralyzed, Rakolta said, unable to find ways of reaching agreements.

Sandy Baruah, CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber, said that officials from all different sectors tend to get their backs up and bicker over who has the best ideas to move forward.

David Egner, CEO of the Hudson-Webber Foundation and executive director of the New Economy Initiative, said individuals are still driven by ideology instead of spending more time educating themselves on issues and possible solutions.

While term limits for state politicians were criticized by most the members of the panel, they were not considered the fundamental cause of the problem facing state politicians. There is a greater overall cultural problem, evident nationally, that drives politicians away from reaching agreement, as evidenced by the problems politicians in Washington run into trying to resolve issues, they said.

And Baruah said citizens should be more willing to reward politicians who take tough, controversial stands. Doug Rothwell , executive director of Business Leaders for Michigan, said, though he did not name the lawmaker, a House member who voted for the retirement program for teachers had received a large stack of letters criticizing her and fewer than a handful of letters praising her. One of the letters praising her came from Rothwell’s organization.

In terms of finding solutions to the ongoing standoff that seems to pervade the entire state, the panel said a first effort has to be in generating conversations between people to find ways to reach agreement.

And Rakolta said individuals have to be willing to confront and discuss unpopular, difficult subjects, such as the continuing racial segregation of the Detroit area or a willingness to sell major assets of the state, such as the Mackinac Bridge.

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