Mayoral Race: James F. Penman's economic development platform

These are City Attorney and mayoral candidate James F. Penman's statements on his economic development platform. They are presented unedited.

- Penman's initial response:

Four years ago, the people of San Bernardino were promised economic development of San Bernardino by the current administration. Today, San Bernardino is suffering from massive unemployment. Graffiti is rampant in our neighborhoods. The city's budget is a shambles. Businesses are leaving our city while the Mayor pushes to build yet another government-subsidized low-income housing project that will bring even more crime and blight to San Bernardino.

The majority of new businesses that have opened are 99 cent stores, convenience stores and liquor stores. All but one of our furniture stores closed under the current administration BEFORE THE RECESSION HIT, the downtown hotel closed BEFORE THE RECESSION HIT, retail stores at the Carousel Mall left, BEFORE THE RECESSION HIT.

How much longer will San Bernardino believe the promises of the old guard that supports my opponent and has called the shots in this town for several decades?

It's time for real change at City Hall to make our city prosperous once again.

San Bernardino has a top notch Director of Economic Development who has the know-how, the energy and the will to attract business to this city if he is allowed to spend the majority of his time pursing that goal.

Instead, his office spends too much time and energy developing plans and applying for federal grants to purchase and rehabilitate low-income apartments, such as the apartment complex in the 1700 block of East Date Street, between Del Rosa and Sterling. In July the City applied for another $8 million grant and listed that property as the location where the funds will be utilized. This is addition to the $8.4 million grant the city secured for Arden-Guthrie.

This prioritization of programs that attract more parolees and homeless people to our city is counter-productive to economic development. This city will never see successful economic development until this focus on drawing those populations to our city changes. San Bernardino has done more than our fair share in that effort. We already have an abundance of low-income housing. The economic future of our city CANNOT be tied to the rehabilitation of parolees and the housing of the homeless for the entire region. Other cities prosper while San Bernardino draws their parolees and homeless people away from those communities to our own.

As our next Mayor, I will:

--Repeal the City Council's decision to build the new Arden Guthrie housing project. This kind of housing project is INCOMPATIBLE with REAL economic development.

--In partnership with the SAN BERNARDINO AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE create a CITIZENS' BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE composed of
San Bernardino Business, Labor and Educational leaders who will WORK hand in glove with the Mayor's office to recruit and retain businesses in our city.

Unlike previous committees convened for this purpose I WILL MOSTLY KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT,LISTEN,LEARN AND IMPLEMENT THEIR SOLUTIONS. This will be a true WORKING committee. Those who want the "prestige" they believe will come from being a part of this gathering NEED NOT APPLY.

This Committee would serve with the Chamber of Commerce as voluntary Economic Ambassadors for San Bernardino to the larger regional, state and national business communities.

Judi Penman is the President and CEO of the San Bernardino Area Chamber of Commerce, a private agency that receives no government funding (and no funding from the City.) The Chamber has NEVER been used the way it should be used as a partner with City government in Economic Development.

Businesses previously contacted the Chamber and the City daily, then weekly, then monthly and now occasionally, about moving to San Bernardino. But once they drive around town and see the filthy streets, gutters and unmaintained properties, the trash debris and the GRAFFITI, once they see the young men standing in front of apartment complexes, standing in the parking lots of convenience stores and congregating elsewhere in the city, once they see the parolees and homeless who have been drawn to San Bernardino by our aggressive programming to rehabilitate the parolees and house the homeless, THEY SAY, "NO WAY."

They refuse to come to a city whose very appearance cries out, "CRIME, FILTH, UNSAFE, TURN BACK, RUN."

I will bring REAL CHANGE -- Make San Bernardino safe by taking tough, no-nonsense action to clean up graffiti, rid our city of gang crime, and strengthen our moratorium against parolee housing.

We will use JAIL INMATES DAILY to clean up our streets; we will partner with CALTRANS to impose $1,000 fines on those who trash our streets,highways and freeways. We will use surveillance cameras and undercover stake-outs to identify, arrest and punish graffiti vandals.

Yes, we will clean up graffiti going back to the Los Padrinos concept of employing youth to do the work. Teaching those young people work ethics, getting to work on time, enjoying the benefits of a paycheck, and the self-esteem that comes from having a job. We will stop spending the doubled cost of what Los Padrinos charged us for keeping the graffiti under better control and did so for half the price recently spent to do half the job.

We will make sure the criticisms of Los Padrinos are answered by providing a book keeper and strong, well-trained supervision for their work - help they had requested before the Mayor broke the tie vote and terminated their contract with the city.

Graffiti clean-up will not wait until just before the next election to begin. It will be on-going and the town will be cleaned. But we know that to truly stop the proliferation of graffiti we also have to catch and punish these vandals, not just merely cover up their work.

ADULT TAGGERS will work, and work,and work, cleaning up the damage they and their buddies have caused. They will also pick up trash, sweep streets, and mop sidewalks along with other jail inmates.

Mayor Giuliani did just that in New York AND IT WORKED. That is how MAYOR GIULIANI cleaned up New York City and we can do the same here.

PARENTS WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE DAMAGE CAUSED BY THEIR CHILDREN, and that accountability will be to the extent that they will desire to LEAVE SAN BERNARDINO, or teach their children what it means to be fined and put to work cleaning up the damage they cause. The California Penal Code already has the law in place requiring parents and their children to pay for and clean up this damage. Why did my opponent wait until three months before the upcoming election to "request" our judges to apply this law?

This clean up of our city is vital to our economic development and all the grandiose ideas and plans have amounted to nothing and will continue to amount to nothing until this is accomplished.

Employers want to locate their businesses in communities that are clean and safe.

I will ALSO secure federal grants for expanded job training and business development opportunities for San Bernardino. I will pursue with the Chamber of Commerce, Labor and the San Bernardino City Unified School District,on whose board Judi Penman serves as an elected representative, the transformation of PACIFIC HIGH SCHOOL into a school that teaches profitable trades for those young men and women who do not desire to go to college. School Board President Teresa Parra and Judi Penman have been pushing this idea for some time. District administrators have opposed this idea. The City needs to put its influence behind this proposed new school and make it a reality.

The PACIFIC HIGH SCHOOL CAREER VOCATIONAL ACADEMY will not be the shop And home economics classes of the 1950s and 1960s that school counselors pushed bright minority students into, rather than encouraging them to go on to college.

This will be a true vocational high school program that will work hand in hand with labor and the business community to teach skills, work ethics and train our youth in numerous trades, including computer technology, maintenance and repair. We must train our non-college bound youth to become income-earners and leaders in our community.

This priority will result in a skilled work force being created in our city that will serve the entire region. Next to crime and graffiti, businesses leaving San Bernardino cite the lack of such a trained work force as one main reason for relocating away from our city.

Additionally, at PACIFIC's CAREER VOCATIONAL ACADEMY and throughout our city's educational system, Parks and Recreation programs, and by every means possible, we will encourage our youth to remain in San Bernardino after they graduate from high school or return here after they graduate from college.

The Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO has endorsed me for Mayor because of my commitment to fostering the kinds of programs mentioned above and because of my commitment to addressing the concerns of San Bernardino working families.

Businesses will STAY, RELOCATE and OPEN in a clean and safe San Bernardino.

The fact that "business is the lifeblood of our city" will cease to be just another public relations soundbite. It will be understood that IT IS BUSINESSES THAT BRING EMPLOYMENT, re-investment of money into the community and it is businesses that provide the strong tax-base essential to hire the police officers,firefighters and other city workers to provide public safety, fill the potholes, repair the streets, maintain street lighting and traffic signals, maintain and operate our parks and make the quality of life in San Bernardino such that we are truly a place where people want to live, work, and raise their families.

THAT IS REAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.

I have many, many other ideas that I will be discussing in the coming days and weeks on using economic development to revitalize and clean-up our city. Those ideas will feature real redevelopment of the former Norton Air Force Base as an aviation-centered facility. The abuses and scandals on-going at that location, including the leadership failures will be addressed, corrected, and not repeated.

Even my opponents know that I always keep my word. What is said above will be accomplished should the voters choose to vote for real change.

Penman's second response:

1. Location, location, location....we have it...inexpensive land, large work force needing jobs, inexpensive home prices for potential employers, tax and job credit incentives, close to transportation corridors and a potentially viable air cargo center.

... but not without a cleaned-up visual for potential business investors. They want to see clean streets, no graffiti, and TRUE crime reduction. They don't want to see an increase in parolee/sober living homes and homeless shelters. Those things are NOT good for ANY business. Prioritize the existing strong Administrative Civil Penalty ACP)enforcement mechanisms used department/city wide so all eyes are helping to clean up this city. ACPs mean up to $1,000 penalties per day per violation.

2. Find customers through a comprehensive Marketing Campaign...Contact in person, by phone, by mail with a marketing CD or by email to all CA companies with 50 or more employees and suggest ways for expansion or relocation from communities with higher land/home prices, or with too much traffic and not close enough to transportation corridors. Create a list of incentives and beef them up with RDA dollars, if necessary. The base could offer first six months rent free, rebates on UUT, waive development fees or postpone them for three to five years, offer back sales tax, offer enterprise zone info with real tutorials to help companies understand how they work. Ask the Chamber to go on that sales trek with Executive Director Marzullo and Mr. Colin Strange in the City's EDA for instance.

Staff from SBIAA and on behalf of the Mayor will make contacts and offer letters of interest in helping companies expand or relocate. Read the LA times, San Jose Mercury News, San Diego newspapers daily for the fictitious business name publications and contact those companies offering these incentives. Contact the Sec of State for new LC or Corporate filings, daily.

3. Fix the Block Wall Bureaucracy in the City's Development Services functions: Solve internal implementation issues in order to streamline one's ability to navigate through the bureaucracy, create a REAL one stop in the Dev Services Dept or implement a real liaison between RDA and Dev Services so no one and no single business has to navigate that system alone, this is similar to the plan EDA employee Lori Tillery put together in the Bus Services One Stop that is in its infancy right now. Learn how to create revenue by selling city assets...our Channel 3 services, increase commercial refuse accounts, sell or lease city owned properties, red light cameras and other crime reducing technologies, etc.

There are many,many more ideas where these came from. Twenty-three years as City Attorney, watching mistake after mistake, learning from a few successes and seeing our Office's ideas and pleas THAT HAVE WORKED IN OTHER CITIES disregarded (solely because the idea/plea source was the City Attorney's Office)has taught us what works and what doesn't work.

WE HAVE THE ANSWERS, SO DOES THE PUBLIC. In contrast, my opponent has almost four years of repeated failures: graffiti, Fourth Most Dangerous City in California (compared to sixth most dangerous when he was elected,) Operation Phoenix, the former Norton Air Force Base, etc.