Cooperation Caught a Company : Negotiations: Firm decides to spurn Arizona and move to Moorpark thanks to the work of a special team.
On the morning of May 20, 1994, Diane Grover received a telephone call from Assemblyman Nao Takasugi’s office.
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“There’s a company that is looking to leave the state,” warned an aide to Takasugi (R-Oxnard).
The telephone call was not good news for Grover, a Southern California Edison executive in the utility’s business-retention group. More and more companies were leaving Ventura County and the state for cheaper environs. The exodus was costing Edison millions of dollars in lost revenue, prompting the utility to form Grover’s department in 1991.
As the group’s Ventura County project manager, Grover had the job of persuading Special Devices Inc. in Newhall to keep its 500 jobs in Southern California. Company officials were talking seriously about moving to Arizona.
Special Devices designs and manufactures explosive devices. For years, the privately held company relied on the aerospace industry. Recently, it began making small detonators to inflate air bags in automobiles. That division has been expanding rapidly, and Special Devices outgrew its plant in northern Los Angeles County.
As she has done more than 40 times in the last four years, Grover immediately called the state Trade and Commerce Agency and a so-called red team was formed. A new team is created for every new business crisis.
This one was headed by Grover and consisted of elected officials and bureaucrats from the state, the county, Moorpark, Simi Valley and Fillmore.
The red team concept was the brainchild of Commerce Agency Secretary Julie Meier Wright, who was appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1991.
“She came from the aerospace industry, where red teams were formed to solve particular problems,” said a Wright aide, Tom Alfano. He sat on the Ventura County red team that helped woo Special Devices to Moorpark.
After more than a year of negotiations--and with Fillmore and Simi Valley dropping out of the competition--the red team hammered out a 21-page document packed with $6 million in tax breaks, reduced or eliminated fees and other incentives. The deal persuaded the company to move to Moorpark.
Its highlights:
* Moorpark agreed to waive $547,570 in traffic fees typically charged developers. And the city agreed to charge the company for only the 28 acres it planned to develop instead of the entire 280-acre parcel, most of which will remain vacant. The city also agreed to forgive both a $15,000 fee that is normally assessed to provide for the purchase and placement of art in public places and a $7,500 landscape fee.
* By deciding to simply extend an existing 12-inch water line and adding a small pump station, Ventura County officials lowered their cost estimate for providing water to Special Devices by $604,700.
* Caltrans agreed to pay up to $300,000 to widen an off-ramp at California 23 and Los Angeles Avenue, where the company plans to build its plant. In addition, Caltrans agreed to a land swap that could net the company another $2 million if the parcel is sold.
* Carlsberg, the Moorpark landowner, dropped its asking price for the property by $400,000. * Southern California Edison helped the company shave $13,414 from the anticipated annual utility bill.
* The state promised $480,000 in tax credits and $1 million in job-training grants.
Those terms were hurriedly put into final form just before Christmas. Company officials called Grover during the holidays and said they needed the team’s best deal. A decision between Moorpark and Mesa, Ariz., was to be made by Dec. 31.
Grover and Ventura County Business Ombudsman Ruth Schepler canceled their holiday vacations and put together the final offer.
“We submitted our proposal and waited,” Schepler said. “But we heard nothing for months.”
Finally, in April, the company chose Moorpark.
“It was a classic red team effort,” Grover said. “It took a little longer than most. But you have to learn to hurry up and wait.”
Grover said she does not consider the deal excessive or unusual.
“It’s all a matter of getting into the pipeline,” Grover said. “There are no magic dollars out there for those who scream they are going to Arizona.”
Still, Grover contends that California’s governmental entities have to change they way they do business and become competitive with more aggressive cities in other states.
“We are in a difficult economic time,” she said.
Moorpark Assistant City Manager Richard Hare agreed. He said this is the first time his city has considered charging traffic fees on only the property proposed for development instead of the entire parcel.
“It is something we will surely look at again,” he said.
