Orange Panel Unveils Plan to Retain Jobs : Employment: The task force wants to streamline the business permit process, learn about problems before an employer decides to leave.
The city needs to streamline the permit process for new businesses, consider whether to cluster auto dealers into a mall and create a panel to study manufacturers’ concerns if it expects to keep and attract jobs, a Chamber of Commerce study group reported Tuesday.
The Business Retention Task Force, a group of business executives operating as a committee of the Orange Chamber of Commerce, also suggested a letter-writing campaign to get politicians interested in the business-flight issue and the development of more affordable housing for workers.
The task force was formed earlier this year in reaction to the city’s loss of 500 jobs when two major employers left town--Studio K Furniture, which moved to Idaho, and Auto Parts Exchange, which went to Arizona, said Brent Hunter, chamber executive director.
The task force, trying to identify problems that could drive away more businesses, wants to convey to manufacturers and other businesses that, “We want you; we need you,” Hunter said.
The group endorses the findings of the California Council on Competitiveness, chaired by Rebuild L.A. President and former baseball commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth. That report, commissioned by Gov. Pete Wilson, listed problems that the state must address.
But the Orange task force, chaired by Wayne F. Miller, president of Orange National Bank, centered its recommendations on how to keep businesses within the city of 110,650 people.
To retain the industrial companies in the northwest part of the city, a Manufacturers Council should be formed to share information about issues, such as truck routes and fire codes. “Often we discover a problem only when the business has left the community,” the task force report says.
The task forced noted that in dealing with the city, county, state and federal governments, it can take as many as 80 approvals to establish a business. The report advocates a single, one-stop center where a business person can obtain the required permits. Long Beach has a similar program.
The task force also seeks to determine whether the city’s five new-car dealers might be better served by clustering them into an auto mall by the freeway.
“A site would have to be put together in order to achieve this goal,” the report states. “If an auto mall is feasible, then condemnation of some business properties may be needed to accomplish this goal.”
The report also calls for greater sensitivity to the economic effects of smog regulations, the need for a marketing campaign to persuade businesses to move to Orange, and formation of a “strike team” to help businesses relocate to the city.
