NBBJ Insider

Memo to D.C.: Main Street is fed up

A funny thing happened on the way to whatever this so-called economic recovery is: Confidence among the nation’s biggest companies has come back some while that of owners of small businesses – which represent the vast majority of employers – remains depressed.

New paradigm on education: focus on infants

The state’s K-12 system is one of the poorest performing in the nation. More than 30 percent of Latino boys drop out of high school. The number of college entrants is falling behind an ever-expanding need. Trade and other career educational programs are under attack. The state’s school bureaucracy is broken and non-responsive.

The consequence: California’s status as a world-class economy is under serious and immediate threat.

Now a growing number of business and academic leaders, among them the president of AT&T California, Ken McNeely, believe the solution is to reach back to the years before children even enter school.

Kudos to Petaluma; keep going

When compliments are due, they should be made. So congratulations to the Petaluma City Council and its suffering city employees for Monday night’s 5-2 vote to approve the economy-and-jobs-boosting Regency Centers project that will include the locally based Friedman’s Home Improvement store and a Target.

It only took six years.

The real impediment to jobs

The priorities for Sonoma County are “jobs, jobs and jobs,” said Third District Supervisor Shirlee Zane.
“Everyone I talk to says the No. 1 issue is jobs,” said Fifth District Supervisor Efren Carrillo.

Uplifting. But then reality seeps in.