The real impediment to jobs
Both supervisors were adamant.
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.
Both were speaking last week to the monthly meeting of the Sonoma County Alliance attended by 300 business, labor and community leaders.
Ms. Zane said she has been working with a high-tech employer exploring a move to Sonoma County with 80 employees. That effort, still being worked on, earned applause.
Another entrepreneur is looking at building a permanent farm market in Santa Rosa. Applause again.
At a time when Sonoma County unemployment is stuck at an unacceptably high 10-plus percent and with no end in sight, the supervisors’ recognition of the immediate need for job creation was uplifting.
But then, a few minutes later, reality seeps in: The permanent, unelected government regulatory agencies are the real impediment to jobs and the economy, not the supervisors. There are multiple overlapping bureaus, seemingly answerable to no one. There is lifetime job protection for those who hold sway over this permit or that waiver. And there frequently is complete ignorance — or willful indifference — about what it is like to meet a payroll.
Then there is the almost religious devotion to so-called green jobs when it is at best uncertain just how much impact they will have in a dynamic, diverse economy.
Meanwhile, many government leaders continue to express the opinion that a $24 million shortfall last year and a $36 million deficit this year are somehow transient.
“If we just pull through one more year with a fee increase or temporary furloughs,” the reasoning goes, “it will turn around.”
But there is growing evidence that state, federal and local shortfalls could be with us for years. The more new jobs are pushed away, the longer that will be the case.
Government budgets tend to lag the performance of the private economy by 18 to 24 months. By almost every measure, the private economy — especially employment — is recovering slowly if at all from a very long recession.
San Rafael Mayor Al Boro likes to say that the city has “connected the dots” between the health of employers and the financial viability of city government and the communities they serve. The city is to be applauded for doing so.
But many government entities have not done so. In fact, the processes have become so dense and so byzantine that the only way out is to “disconnect the dots” and start over.
Then, perhaps, things can really change.
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Brad Bollinger is Business Journal editor in chief and associate publisher. He can be reached at 707-521-4251 or bbollinger@busjrnl.com.
Depressing. Lots of bureaucracy and NO game plan. You would expect more of officials and business leaders in this area.
by Glenn
I have a relative that’s been trying to get a large commercial housing project built for 4 years in Santa Rosa. Permit fees will total over five million dollars. Can they get approval from the city? Duhhh. Nope. My family is still in SR but I can’t live in a city run by people that are hostile to business, have never had to employ people, never risked their own personal assets to keep a business going.
You Santa Rosans voted for these idiots. Will you be smart enough to vote them out.
by Scott
If Las Vegas is offering 3 years free rent for new energy & high tech manufacturing to come to their city to create decent paying jobs, then what are Santa Rosa’s plans to compete with that? I see a lot of empty large commercial buildings . . .
We can’t all work for the city government or the county.
by Catherine