fresno elections 2008

Since the demise of Roeding Industrial Park there have been no concerted efforts to develop a major, 500 plus acre industrial park in Fresno. If you compare completed industrial parks in Southern and Northern California to Fresno we are not competitive. These other parts of the state offer completed, landscaped, and paved parks with direct access to freeways and railroad spurs. You are offered a turnkey business opportunity. When you come to Fresno you are shown a vacant lot filled with weeds and the promise that one day the freeway will be extended there and the park will be built. Developing a first class 500 acre plus industrial will be one of my top priorities when I am elected. This will require a major commitment from the city to help assemble the land and find the financing for the infrastructure. A completed, successful park would provide an enormous economic benefit to the community in both jobs and creating new revenues for the city.

Tourism is the second leading industry in Fresno County behind agriculture producing $990 million per years. This is an underdeveloped industry with a lot of potential. We have three major national parks at our back door. The Convention Visitors Bureau or CVB has been ineffective in the past. The city, the county and the EDC have not cooperated in developing a cohesive plan and promotion. Recent changes in leadership at both EDC and CVB have given me confidence that the right team is in place and we can make substantial improvements in our promotion of CVB in Fresno. Let me offer you an example of how much additional revenue could be generated from hotel taxes alone. If you could fill half of the vacant hotel rooms in Fresno it would generate an additional $10 million per year in new revenues.

For years, I have heard talk of making Fresno more business friendly and improving the permit and plan check process. I know firsthand from being a businessman that these improvements have never materialized. Nothing is easy to do in Fresno. A simple tenant improvement project can take weeks to navigate the plan check process and get a permit. There is poor coordination between departments. Our primary source of jobs is existing business. We need to offer the incentives and means for existing business to be successful. One idea I would like to promote is to pre-zone certain parcels. This would be an enormous benefit to assembling the land for an industrial park or finding solutions for affordable housing. Processing a tract map and entitlements can take one to two years and this is simply not going to work.