Newest articles on The Sacramento Press written by Matthew Mahood

Local gov't. should join forces in operating, providing public services

2011-01-05T23:22:49Z

Citrus Heights Police Chief Christopher Boyd has suggested the region’s police and sheriff’s departments should share resources, and the Sacramento Bee agreed, editorializing that it should be a top priority among all of the six-county law enforcement bodies—and their locally elected officials.

Not only do I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment, I say: Why stop there?

The recent admission by the city of Sacramento that it will face a $90 million cashflow problem in the first half of 2011 should set off alarms across the region and open the dialogue among all interested jurisdictions to share services, facilities and personnel. In short, I’m talking about functional consolidation of city and county governments where appropriate.

What can be consolidated? It’s a question rich with investigatory possibilities for a special commission made up of business and public officials. By laying this kind of groundwork, it can help provide elected officials the cover and the will to call for functional consolidation. Indeed, we are waiting for at least the City of Sacramento and County of Sacramento to form a blue ribbon commission to explore where they can join forces to reduce the cost of services while improving them.

This idea came out of the Sacramento Metro Chamber’s 2009 State of the Region forum. A whole year has passed, and while there are conversations among the city and county to join together their Animal Services department, nothing else has been announced.

And we don’t mean political consolidation or annexation or carving out new cities. It takes too long and conditions aren’t right for this kind of massive action. Functional consolidation can be done quickly—and without a campaign or necessary and expensive elections.

Our elected leaders should take notes from the business playbook. In the last three years, corporations and family businesses have cut back, changed their business models, found new places to partner up and learned to do more with less. They have in short become more competent and more competitive. Now, it’s government’s turn.

Matt Mahood is president & CEO of the Sacramento Metro Chamber.

State of the Region Forum to examine strategy to reconnect our communities

2010-08-20T16:09:39Z

Since the end of World War II, our fast-growing population led us to implement “modern” land use planning that included sprawling new suburban neighborhoods, super commutes by automobile and ultimately disjointed communities—miles from where we work, live, shop or play.

The challenge in the 21st century of reconnecting our neighborhoods will be assisted by the new federal Sustainable Communities Initiative, or SCI. Before dismissing it as some bureaucratic scheme, I mention that it’s based upon grassroots work that started in communities all across America. One of the most successful and widely respected efforts began in our own backyard and has become a national model.

In 2001, the Sacramento Metro Chamber called for an “over-arching strategy that promotes quality of growth,” asking, “What legacy do we leave our grandchildren?” Chamber leaders voiced what many business leaders felt—that a process was needed “to engage people in the hands-on task of deciding where business, homes and offices should be...”

This was the business community’s initiation of the successful Blueprint land use planning process. Like others across the nation—Sustainable Minnesota and Envision Utah—Blueprint brought together residents, politicians and business people into a process of deciding how they want their communities to look.

Now these successful local strategies have been adopted by federal housing, transportation and environmental protection agencies, which have created a grant program to foster “sustainable communities.” And because our region has been out front nationally, we are well positioned to compete for federal grants to help integrate where people live, how they get to work and all aspects of life—business, education, health, recreation and more. SCI holds many opportunities for the region—given our recognized status as one of the nation’s leaders in land use and transportation planning and regional collaboration.

The State of the Region Forum on Friday, August 27, at the Hyatt Regency Sacramento will explore how we can successfully implement sustainable strategies throughout the region to improve our economy and quality of life. By attending, you can understand SCI and how to better position yourself and your business to be more competitive in the future. Register here.

Chamber View: Innovation & sustainability can build long-lasting jobs

2010-01-27T01:44:37Z

For the next wave of economic recovery, it’s imperative that the Sacramento Metro Chamber collaboratively identify indicators and driving forces that capitalize on local innovation, intellect and influence. Additionally, we must use up-to-date technology and advances to develop a healthy, more sustainable economy that we believe will ultimately improve our region’s competitiveness.

Our old consumer-based economy was obviously unsustainable. Built on easy access to money and lax lending standards, the housing and financial markets over-bloated other parts of the economy. Downstream job growth swelled, and when the housing market shriveled, other sectors followed.

We await signs that our economy is coming back to life—for our unemployment rate to drop. The sector that can add jobs the quickest—retail—is not one we should rely on for recovery. New jobs must be built on what our region needs long-term for the good of all: jobs in health care, jobs in manufacturing, jobs in infrastructure construction, jobs in building green, LEED-certified buildings.

In other words, we need jobs that feed back to what our economy needs and can support, long-term. We need sustainable jobs. Once these kind of jobs move into the economy, other supporting jobs that come back will be more resilient, based more upon needs of citizens who have real dollars to spend, not borrowed from home equity.

And how do we get to a sustainable economy? By taking action in the here and now—with a concern for future and remote consequences to our region’s economy and quality of life. Our actions, solutions and planning, both internal and external, should be comprehensive and integrative—requiring a regional, collaborative approach to a wide range of business-related issues.

This will be the way the Metro Chamber filters its work in 2010: How can we use innovation, intellect and influence to build a sustainable economy and create long-lasting jobs. This powerful approach is energizing our volunteer leadership, and I hope you will join us.

View other Chamber Views here.

2010--A transitional year upward for our economy

2009-12-18T20:41:57Z

In 2010, will our economy be half empty or half full? I view next year as a “transitional” year—a year in which our region’s economy will begin to grow and flourish again.

But to move our economy forward, we need our friends in the public sector to do their part. They must create a more business-friendly environment that eliminates the stranglehold that our current political and regulatory atmosphere holds on businesses—large or small, privately or publicly held. And in turn, the business community must hold our elected representatives, at all levels, accountable for this kind of good governance.

Recently, the Sacramento Metro Chamber held the Sacramento City Council accountable by supporting Nestle Waters bottling plant. We confronted a sudden whipsaw started by a single city council member after the city shut down construction work on the new plant. The Metro Chamber mobilized the “voice of business,” generating more than 800 emails to council members asking them to consider the very chilling, anti-business and anti-jobs message they were sending. Rational minds prevailed, and Nestle was allowed to restart construction the very next day.

Business 101: If you create conditions where businesses thrive, they create jobs, citizens go to work, make money, pay taxes, buy goods thus causing more people to get jobs, pay taxes and buy goods, and so on. It’s an upward spiral to prosperity. The roots of our economic success is business, thriving companies—not a regulatory or political process that chokes them out.

Let’s remember, 2010 is an election year. If we want our elected officials to enable businesses, not disable them, as was tried with Nestle Waters, I know of no better way than by supporting business-friendly candidates. We ask then that our 2,200 members and all of the region’s businesses to choose wisely.

I would also ask you to join us and our political action committee to further this cause. In gearing up for 2010, we can use your support, now more than ever. Visit www.metrochamber.org for details.