Chamber Drafts Priorities
For City Hall Planning

The Chamber’s Board of Directors, responding to a request from the City, has approved a list of four priorities affecting economic development that the Board wants the City to adopt. The list includes a strongly-worded request to remove impediments to approval of projects, development of an economic strategic plan, creation of an Economic Development position at City Hall, and addressing transportation and infrastructure issues.

The Board acted on October 20 following a recommendation from the Chamber’s Government Affairs/ Economic Development Committee. The City is currently in the process of setting priorities, and has asked a number of community groups including the Chamber to submit priority lists to be considered.

The following is the text of the priorities approved by the Board:

1) Foster an environment within the City’s entitlement process of making prompt, equitable and sensible decisions for both businesses and individuals.  The current culture is broken and needs to be radically transformed immediately, regardless of the timeline for implementing new goals and priorities.  The individual horror stories, taken together, paint an irrefutable picture of a broken culture, and while this is centered in the Community Development Depart­ment, it is not limited to that department.  Part of the new pattern would be to adopt a customer service approach to problem resolution and to addressing regulatory impediments. Appoint a single point of contact who has authority to resolve problems when the improved City process is unable to do so.  Among the benefits of these priorities is that existing businesses will be able to efficiently operate and grow, and that needed new business development can be expedited.  While a top priority is to develop an Economic Strategic Plan, the process of developing the Plan should not become an impediment to existing projects.  The City should move forward expeditiously with the development projects that are already in the pipeline, using existing tools such as the General Plan, Retail Leakage Study, zoning laws and the FEIA to guide the design, entitlement and approval process.  Existing projects include the three major retail sites:  Regency, Merlone Grier and Bayer/Basin Street.

2) Research and develop an Economic Strategic Plan.  The Plan will serve as a guide for Petaluma to achieve a vibrant and sustainable economy.  The Plan will identify specific and achievable goals.   The City should also adopt a timetable to regularly review and update the Economic Strategic Plan.  Regular updates help ensure that the Plan remains current on key economic metrics including local employment data, sales tax revenues and workforce.

3) Appoint or designate a management level employee to serve as the Economic Development Officer for the City. The Economic Development Officer can either be the City Manager or someone who reports directly to the City Manager.  This Economic Development Officer will have the authority to prioritize economic development work within her/his designated duties.

4) Continued focus on transportation and infrastructure issues including road repair and city and regional transportation issues.

Jeff Mayne Is New
Chamber Board Member

Jeff Mayne, owner of Excel Mortgage Solutions and a long-time fixture on the Board of the Petaluma Downtown Association, has been appointed to fill the unexpired term of Tom Buckley, who has left the Sheraton Petaluma and the Chamber Board.

Mayne has been a self-employed businessperson here in Petaluma for over 25 years and has spent the last 21 years in the real estate finance industry assisting people to acquire and maintain real property throughout California.

As a candidate for the Chamber Board in 2007, Mayne said then that “promoting that our shopping dollars stay in town and trying to reverse the trend of the recent Retail Leakage Study is important to me. Trying to draw the support and participation of businesses on both sides of Highway 101 to the issues that affect us all, is also an important goal of mine.”

At the time, he also said that “other issues that I have worked on within our downtown, such as vehicle traffic and vandalism/graffiti problems also pertain to the City at large”.

Recently, Mayne articulated the No position on Measure K (which the Chamber opposes) in a debate on this critical issue.

Food Donation Box At Chamber Office

The Chamber office has a holiday bin for non-perishable foods, and members are urged to drop off donations.

This year, Infineon Raceway has organized a food drive for the benefit of the Petaluma Kitchen, part of that organization’s long-standing relationship with COTS, and this year the Chamber has joined forces as a drop-off point for food donations.

The Chamber’s donation box will also be at the Pelican Gallery Business After Hours on November 25, and members are invited to bring a non-perishable food item for donation.