Council Passes 21-Point Program Aimed at Boosting City to Businesses : Economy: The steps will make it easier for companies to deal with city regulations.

The San Diego City Council on Thursday unanimously approved a 21-point economic development plan designed to make the city more attractive to businesses.

The plan calls for streamlining the permit process and combining economic development programs under one roof.

In an unbroken string of 21 unanimous votes during the four-hour session, the council approved most of the recommendations proposed in December by a council-appointed task force that included business, labor and civic leaders.

Council members also agreed to study several other task force recommendations for possible inclusion in the city’s first-ever comprehensive economic development program.

Business leaders in attendance Thursday said the plan is a welcome economic tonic for a city that has lost 33,600 jobs in the past two years. The task force’s recommendations had drawn strong support from the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Corp.

“I’m very, very pleased,” said Michel Anderson, a consultant who chaired the task force that generated the plan. The unanimous vote will “put to rest all of the skeptics” who doubted that the council would vote to help San Diego’s recession-weary business community, Anderson said.

Anderson said the package should produce immediate results for business owners and operators who have long complained that the city bureaucracy is anti-business.

The plan “sounds good, it sounds very good,” said William W. Otterson, director of the UC San Diego Connect program, which helps small, high-tech companies grow into profitable businesses. Otterson was one of nearly 100 business people who attended the council meeting.

Included in the package, which council members described as the first step in a new public-private partnership, were:

* An evaluation of the existing permit process with an eye to making it quicker and less expensive.

* Creation of an Office of Small Business to serve as an advocate for companies that are having trouble getting permits.

* The awarding of performance-based, multi-year contracts to a number of organizations, including the Chamber of Commerce, the EDC and the Convention & Visitors Bureau. The organizations now are awarded city funding on an annual basis.

* A City Hall reorganization that places the city Economic Development Division directly under the city manager, to better serve as an “ombudsman” between city government and business.

* A water strategy to “assure targeted industries with a guaranteed source of water for current and future use.” The industries include high-tech and biotech companies, tourism, international trade, the military and aerospace.