August 13, 2009 at 12:23 AM

Local Perspective

May 16, 2009

The city of Chula Vista faces many challenges in fundamentally improving its spending habits. They include pension reform, evaluating and perhaps changing the city's overtime policy, strategic planning and assuring fair and open competition for city construction contracts. These have been addressed in a fiscal reform plan from the Chula Vista Taxpayers Association that will soon be considered by other organizations.

Without promising a quick fix, it must be recognized that residential services cannot reach an acceptable long-term standard until a sufficient tax-producing business sector is in place. In large measure, this means a responsible approach to attracting new anchor companies to stimulate our local economy and create jobs.

We have to be serious about an economic plan and we need the public to buy in. The South County Economic Development Commission is engaged in a wide economic regional study that will include identifying which industries are best suited to Chula Vista.

It already seems clear that Chula Vista and the South County will depend on a symbiotic relationship with our hoped-for university in which new companies will require properly specialized graduates as employees, and the university will require advance knowledge of locally required job skills to devise appropriate educational programs.

Not every well-fitting industry will be as sexy as biotech. The city must have the support of the Chamber of Commerce and other credible groups to explain the community benefits of key industries and promote public support for strategies to recruit targeted companies. Historically, some in our city leadership have erred in treating neighborhood-oriented groups as implacable enemies when instead they should be treated with respect and recruited as allies in a common cause.

We need teamwork beyond government to bring in selected companies. We should recruit our most influential business leaders, provide them with support from a small but highly skilled city staff contingent, and fly them wherever they need to go to represent our city to the presidents of those companies identified as most compatible with the assets and needs of our community. We then need to work with them to mitigate the barriers that exist to an expansion into Chula Vista (“take away their excuses”) and strive for a project review and public comment phase that is no less rigorous, but faster. There are many who point to lost opportunities simply because we took too long.

It is time to end the Chula Vista building height wars. Some are enthusiastic about high-rise development, some see a better future that is limited almost exclusively to low-rise redevelopment. Yet, when outside interests being courted see us as an unstable political war zone, we get nothing and that's not good.

We can and should benefit greatly from the taxes that come from high-rise development where there is consensus that it is appropriate. Both our economy, tax-sustained neighborhood services and general quality of life would really benefit from implementing an effective low-to medium-rise redevelopment strategy in our business core. We don't have to travel to Santa Monica to see what is possible if we come together around a sensible vision. Just take a look at what has been accomplished on Orange Avenue in Coronado and in the La Jolla business district very near the coast.

Let's stop undermining our existing businesses. Not so long ago, Chula Vista initiated the “fire code inspection” fee otherwise known as the “phony tax.” Businesses are charged every year for an inspection that is not based on safety concerns. Actually, the inspection probably will never be carried out because the inspector position has been cut. Similar in spirit is the reduction in time available on parking meters, apparently so that more customers will fall victim to parking tickets and probably consider shopping elsewhere. What sense of practicality and fairness do these measures reflect?

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  Altbaum is owner of Coin Mart Jewelry and a board member of the Chula Vista Civic Association, now being founded. Breitfelder is president of the Chula Vista Taxpayers Association.