Plan needed to keep jobs in California

Cynthia Kurtz, Correspondent

YOU have likely heard that Texas is stealing California's businesses. Because Texas is creating jobs, they are also stealing many of our educated youth. Maybe the greatest loss to our state is educating the next generation of business owners and workers here then losing them to a competing state.

Now Texas is starting to get a little too blatant ... the Austin Chamber of Commerce has opened an office in Los Angeles. Dave Porter, senior vice president for the Austin Chamber says, "We typically take 10 to 12 marketing trips to California, and this year we decided to open an office in California for business development purposes.

"It will generate leads and respond quicker to leads. California is our greatest source of success, and we will continue this effort at least through this year."

I just returned from a few days in Dallas, Texas. While my trip had more to do with eating great barbecue than with economic development, I could not help noticing the miles of corporate campuses that line the highways. Each complex has large modern buildings, manicured landscaping, and is accessed from wide, clean streets free of potholes. You can certainly understand the appeal of Texas.

Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom recently led a bipartisan group of California officials to Texas to review their economic development efforts and learn about what they are doing to attract some of our best and brightest businesses and people.

He recently spoke about the trip and shared his conclusions with the board of the Los Angeles County Business Federation, a consortium of business associations in L.A. County, including the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership.

Newsom agreed with many of the business representatives in the room when he said our regulations don't always make sense. He did not have to travel to Texas to learn that fact. He acquired it from his personal experiences as a business owner.

When he built a wine bar that was completely carpeted, the city still required him to install a mop sink. Since there was no mopping to be done, he planted flowers in the sink. Now it is one expensive planter, but Newsom said it did have good drainage.

Ironically, it was the sink incident that drove the him to become involved in government. He complained so much about the sink requirement that the powers at City Hall finally appointed him to a commission.

What he learned in Texas is that they are very organized and focused in what they do. They have a plan, they know where they want to go and they work together to implement that plan.

What about California? There is no California plan for economic development.

According to Newsom, there are 36 state agencies that "dabble" in job retention or job growth with their own ideas about what that means.

In his role as chair of the California Commission for Economic Development, Newsom has decided that there are two critical steps. First, we need an economic development plan that will strategically align economic development with work force development. A draft plan is currently being prepared and will be released in June.

Second, the plan must have focused leadership. He is working with Speaker Perez to initiate legislation that will organize the state's economic development agencies and activities under the Office of the Governor.

Cynthia Kurtz is the president and CEO of the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership. She can be reached at www.facebook.com/SGVEP.