Thursday, September 2, 2010

North Bay Job Creation


North Bay Job Creation

Recently, Brenda Gilchrist of the HR Matrix asked a few North Bay business people the following questions:

In your opinion, what do you think it will take to create [and/or retain] jobs? 
 - Any barriers to creating jobs?
 - Any changes needed for job creation?
 - Are you concerned about jobs?
 - Are there barriers for companies to be successful or to start up, which impacts the ability to create jobs?


Here is my answer:

I am VERY concerned about jobs in the North Bay. We have 12% unemployment. There are many, many people without jobs. (Full disclosure: me included)

I think it is very difficult for businesses to start, operate, and expand in our communities. Small business and startup businesses are the engine that feeds our economy and creates jobs. If businesses have challenges starting up, operating, and expanding, they cannot create jobs.

There are many barriers to business expansion and job creation here in the North Bay. Most people tend to blame the state and local government regulations. They are right. But…I would suggest that we, the people of the North Bay, play just as big of a part in the situation.

1) Many North Bay people have gone beyond NIMBY (not in my backyard) straight to BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything). The badly needed asphalt plant in Petaluma is a good example. Despite being in a great (and historically appropriate) location for this kind of industry (close to freeway, river access for raw material delivery), people oppose it because it is NEAR a park. Not in a park. Just near a park. Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything.

2) The North Bay electorate swings wildly…electing pro-growth representatives one year, anti-growth representatives the next year. How can businesses that operate on a multi-year horizon do any planning? It has taken Target 10 years to get permits to build in Petaluma. Since the planning process takes more time than a city council term, they have been subject to the wild swings in sentiment in the city council.

3) There is always somebody opposed to anything. So…doing anything is a huge fight. This makes trying to do anything just not worth it for many existing businesses and new entrepreneurs.

Finally, there is an issue of focus. Our cities and chambers of commerce recently have tended to focus on driving tourism and retail. This makes sense as tourism and retail drive sales tax and ToT (transient occupancy tax) revenue. 10 years ago, I remember a local mayor trumpeting Telecom Valley and the $100K jobs it brought. Today I hear that same official banging the drum for tourism and retail. Tourism and retail will bring $10/hr jobs. What an amazing change in focus.

We need to work together to grow the North Bay economy and create jobs. State and local government can play a part. They can work harder to facilitate business creation and expansion. The citizens of the North Bay need to play a part. We have to stop opposing everything. But, most of all, we all need to agree to focus on not just job creation but good job creation. In addition to tourism we need to focus on enabling the creation of more technology companies that will export goods and services from the North Bay region (phrase proudly plagiarized from Michael Adler). Those companies will create $100K jobs that will drive our economy. Incidentally, if we do that, the retail jobs will follow.
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1 comment:

  1. UnknownSeptember 14, 2010 at 10:20 AM

    The focus at the local level (and at the individual "activist" level) seems to be getting more short-sighted every time a new issue comes up. The asphalt plant and Target are both good examples. The asphalt plant's opposition neglects to consider that this region CONSUMES asphalt. Take a drive up 101 and you'll see just one example. The further away the plant is from its raw materials, the further those materials will have to be driven by truck. The same is true for the finished product. Remember the reason the freeway needs to be widened in the first place? The same thing happens time and time again. We opt out of the local production of goods and materials that we NEED. Since we don't stop needing them, we just continue to consume them -- from somewhere else. This import of materials results in tax dollars leaving our region. It also results in even more over-the-road trucking (read: pollution, wear and tear on roads, consumption of even more resources, and higher prices). If I'm not mistaken, the ugly and evil "environmental impact" is precisely what we were trying to avoid in the first place.

    The Target example is more obvious. Rohnert Park has a Target. It's not very far away. The tax dollars leave Petaluma and go to Rohnert Park.

    And look at the way that the local cities are battling their budget crises -- raising sales tax. A "one-pronged" approach, and a short-sighted one. In Cotati and Rohnert Park, the soon-to-be-implemented half-cent sales tax increase has a five year sunset. I haven't seen the cities doing anything else of substance to boost their revenue bases beyond the five year sunset period. Where are the incentives for new businesses to move in/start up and create jobs? The only incentive I've seen is the desire of locals to live and work here, which isn't going to cut it for the long term.

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