Fewer Businesses Lured by Pitch to Leave State : Relocation: Recruiters from dozens of states at this year’s trade show find far fewer companies wanting to be wooed.
Recruiters from dozens of other states, hoping to lure businesses away from California, were met with sparse attendance at a relocation trade show Monday.
Compared with last year’s show, “there aren’t any people here,” said Gary Cook, a real estate broker from Carson City, Nev. Behind him, in his company’s booth, a sign read, “Tired of California?”
Earthquakes and brush fires notwithstanding, people attending the Trends 2000 show at the Anaheim Marriott, which ends today, said they believe fewer companies are anxious to move out of Southern California, compared with last year.
“For a while, it was, ‘I’m getting out of California, I’m tired of it’ ” said Ronald R. Kitchens, director of economic development for the city of Warsaw, Mo. “Now, it’s much more an expansion mentality, versus relocation.”
Preregistered attendance was 215 companies and 300 individuals, about the same number as last year, said Dennis Carruth, a Carlsbad businessman who has produced the trade show independently since July, 1992. But few of the registered participants were apparent on the trade show floor as of mid-afternoon.
“Considering the rain, we’re doing OK,” he said.
Governor Wilson’s office was not content to let interest in relocation wane on its own. A handful of protesters from Team California--a coalition of public and private interests organized under the Department of Trade and Commerce--picketed the show briefly in the morning.
The picketers called themselves a “briefcase brigade” and pointed out positive changes in the state’s business climate: reduction of red tape on the state level, so-called “red teams” organized to help persuade a company to stay and recent legislation to lower worker’s compensation premiums.
“Obviously, California is being much more proactive,” said Scott S. Nelson, a marketing coordinator for the state trade and commerce agency.
Southern California has scored some successes in the last year in persuading businesses to stay put. A large division of TRW Inc. decided to remain in Orange; Loral Aeronautic will move from Newport Beach to Rancho Santa Margarita; Lockheed Corp. has decided to stay in Calabasas and a red team is working to keep Taco Bell in Irvine.
Southern California has lost 552,700 jobs to recession and business departures since mid-1990. A recent study by UC Irvine surveyed businesses about their top woes. Scoring highest were transportation problems, lack of affordable housing, land and building costs, cumbersome environmental regulations and difficulty in finding skilled labor.
Picking up on those themes, economic development agents from Kentucky to Arizona to Oregon advertised their states’ tax incentives, low land costs, English-speaking labor and uncongested highway systems.
Attending the conference for the first time were representatives of Baja California and its cities. They said that the North American Free Trade Agreement makes Mexico a springboard for learning to trade with other countries in Latin America.
“We have been living with free trade with obstacles for years,” said Enrique Mier y Teran, president of the economic development council in Tijuana. “The restrictions are already less. (NAFTA) is happening, it’s on.”
Exhibitors came also from other California counties for a bit of intrastate raiding. They said they offer freedom from graffiti, crime and other phenomena endemic to Southern California.
“If Lassen County had an earthquake, that would really be unusual,” said Sonjia Edwards, a loan officer with the Northern California county’s department of community development.
She pointed to a photo of six deer standing in a green field, saying, “That’s my friend’s back yard.”
However, if Southern California did not have its attractions, such as beaches, warm weather and a cosmopolitan atmosphere, it would not have lured as many people as it has through the years, said Steven K. Nelson, a manager with Southern California Edison. The utility was hoping to counsel businesses at the show on how to save energy and meet air quality standards.
“These other states are here trying to get people to move out,” he said. “That’s why they’re here, because people don’t live there to begin with.”
