William Burg comment-43204 2011-01-06T16:29:04Z 2011-01-06T16:29:04Z We could also revisit ideas like State Sen. Steniberg's sales tax revenue sharing idea, as a way to evenly fund these functional consolidations, rather than creating an odious burden on one portion of the consolidated region. William Burg 2011-01-06T16:29:04Z RichardRich comment-43203 2011-01-06T16:06:29Z 2011-01-06T16:06:29Z Governor' Browns recent comments that government services and work should be closer to the people...that is, shifting state functions to the county level...makes this idea even more timely. RichardRich 2011-01-06T16:06:29Z dshore22 comment-35362 2010-08-22T18:45:45Z 2010-08-22T18:45:45Z LOL! Mr. Burg and Naga his one out of the park on this Chamber shindig. I guess they don't really want thems with dirty hands to attend -- I mean, 'we' don't figure into their strategy for we are mere chattels in their eyes. Of course, the chamber's national strategy is to keep us in our place -- poor, pregnant, and stupid. Good times. dshore22 2010-08-22T18:45:45Z naga comment-35311 2010-08-21T17:22:04Z 2010-08-21T17:22:04Z What you have agreed on is that the business/builder class who can afford/write off an $85 lunch and afford/write off time during the day for this exclusive event, will decide for "the community" what our future will be. How kind to allow the serfs to view the recorded proceedings after the fact. naga 2010-08-21T17:22:04Z DionDwyer comment-35263 2010-08-20T22:40:54Z 2010-08-20T22:40:54Z I am glad to see us agree on this! The chamber is currently looking into offering on-line streaming options for the community to view within 24 hours of the event. Please check our web page www.metrochamber.org for future announcements. DionDwyer 2010-08-20T22:40:54Z William Burg comment-35249 2010-08-20T20:47:12Z 2010-08-20T20:47:12Z Thanks for clarifying that the Executive Level tickets are $150 each. It does sound interesting, but $85 is about what I spend on lunches for an entire month. I'm sure the subject matter will be very interesting--especially if it involves asking Chamber members involved with greenfield development how they reconcile expanding metropolitan Sacramento's suburban footprint with state, regional and federal efforts to limit exactly that kind of growth. William Burg 2010-08-20T20:47:12Z DionDwyer comment-35242 2010-08-20T19:36:41Z 2010-08-20T19:36:41Z William is the $85 cost too much to make a difference in our region? I am sorry that this is not a free event, however, when was the last time you got lunch at the Hyatt and free access to an event? Over 300 people that have already purchased tickets seem to think the price is in line with the content. Point of clarification for those interested the Executive Level sponsorship it does includes 10 tickets to the event. The Chamber is focusing on how to improve our community and we look for voices like yours at the table. Did you see who will be leading the discussion at this event? We will be discussing your question of what is "Sustainablity" and what does it look for our region. I think you would enjoy the conversation and the first hand look at the solid work that the Chamber is doing in this arena. Our Featured Speaker is Matthew Dalbey, Ph.D., AICP - Senior Policy Analyst, U.S. EPA. Our Panel Moderator is David Lowe - President & General Manager, KVIE Public Television and the Panel Members are Councilmember Leslie McBride, Yuba City, SACOG Board Chair, Councilmember Kevin McCarty, City of Sacramento, Aimee Rutledge, Executive Director, Sacramento Valley Conservancy, Scott Syphax, President & CEO, Nehemiah Corporation of America and Stan Van Vleck, Principal, DiMare, Van Vleck & Brown LLC. Community planning in the future will integrate where people live, how they get to work and all aspects of life--business, education, health, recreation and more. The Sustainable Community Initiatives, a soon-to-be implemented federal program, holds many opportunities for the Sacramento region--given our recent recognized status we received from “BLUEPRINT” as one of the nation’s leaders in land use and transportation planning and regional collaboration. The discussion will focus on how “we” (meaning you too) can successfully implement comprehensive sustainable strategies throughout the Sacramento region that will ultimately improve our economy and quality of life. www.metrochamber.org/events DionDwyer 2010-08-20T19:36:41Z William Burg comment-35232 2010-08-20T16:33:34Z 2010-08-20T16:33:34Z State of the Region Sponsorship - Executive Level 10 $1,500.00 State of the Region Attendee Registration - EARLY MEMBER PRICE 1 $55.00 State of the Region Attendee Registration - EARLY NONMEMBER PRICE 1 $85.00 Many prominent members of the Sacramento Metro Chamber are the same companies that built (and still builds) those sprawling suburban communities. Does this new direction back to the way we used to build cities when Downtown and Midtown were built represent a change in direction for the companies who built out Sacramento's exo-burban communities and edge cities, and are lobbying to continue that suburban expansion (far in excess of the county's projected population growth) into places like Brighton, or farther out into Placer and El Dorado County? Sustainability is a many-faceted thing--what does it mean on an implementation level? For example, rehabbing and repairing an existing building is a far more sustainable practice than demolishing a building and replacing it with a new one, even if the new building is a "green" building--the embodied energy of the building, construction energy, and construction/demolition waste in the landfill is equal to decades' worth of a building's power consumption. Does this new direction towards sustainability mean protection for the useful built environment we already have, in the form of historic buildings and neighborhoods? Rehab and repair is also a better economic strategy because it focuses on hiring workers to fix buildings instead of buying new building materials. Those are jobs that can't be shipped overseas! If the Metro Chamber stands behind this "New American Dream," I am hopeful that they will clarify what new policies (on the level of implementation and action, not just philosophy) they are calling for in a forum that doesn't require $85 to attend. William Burg 2010-08-20T16:33:34Z bbbbmer comment-21389 2010-01-27T20:14:09Z 2010-01-27T20:14:09Z ....Or, such as the creative retrofitting, rehabilitation, and renovation of a certain arena in Natomas... Isn't it funny how the (((Chamber))) (pot)'s rhetoric seems diametrically opposed to its actual deeds.... bbbbmer 2010-01-27T20:14:09Z William Burg comment-21346 2010-01-27T06:44:37Z 2010-01-27T06:44:37Z One of the keys to sustainability is making better uses of existing resources--such as adaptive reuse of existing buildings, especially historic buildings. Buildings constructed prior to 1930 tend to be more energy-efficient than those built during the later 20th century--only very new construction can match it, but because historic buildings are already built there is minimal energy cost compared to new construction. The energy required to construct a new building (and demolish an old one) is equivalent to decades of the building's energy use during its service lifetime. Restoration of a historic building requires far, far less energy. It also takes up less room at the landfill--about half the waste in landfill is construction scraps and chunks of demolished buildings! Restoring historic buildings also means more jobs than new construction because 70-80% of the cost for restoration is labor. Materials in restoration projects are more likely to be local projects. Conversely, new construction, even of the "green" variety, tends to use imported materials, and only 50% of the budget is labor cost--thus, fewer jobs per project dollar. New buildings also tend to use more energy-intensive materials, like metal and concrete, vs. the wood and brick used in older buildings. The greenest building is one that's already built--and the best one for a long-term healthy economy! www.thegreenestbuilding.org William Burg 2010-01-27T06:44:37Z Reno comment-21337 2010-01-27T02:20:30Z 2010-01-27T02:20:30Z Lets hope this is what you are talking about! http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/21082/Feds_award_5m_for_alternative_energy Reno 2010-01-27T02:20:30Z bbbbmer comment-19730 2009-12-22T17:39:57Z 2009-12-22T17:39:57Z Um, Knappy, just to refresh your memory, the bailouts started with Bush/Cheney last September/October, and their bailouts were untrammelled with pesky things like conditions or even the need to pay them back -- in fact, the applications were two-pages long -- not even as long as a mortgage app to buy a teeny tiny little house... Obama inherited this mess, and on his first day, applied conditions and repayment obligations to these bailouts, and we've even made some money off of them.... Unfortunately the toxicity of the Bush/Cheney years hasn't begun to subside, and next year it will become evident through massive commercial real estate defaults, such as those now being encountered by noneother than Thomas Enterprises, the Railyards developer, among so many others.... and it is THIS little blip that is going to play hard and heavy with Sacramento's overleveraged development community -- the ones who aided and abetted your friend KJ to, through whatever quirk of electoral 'magic', to be seated as mayor.... In fact, it's already begun -- the SAG group supporting the SMI has had to already regroup twice to survive, and the campaign hasn't even begun -- especially after a pending AG investigation into just how they got people to sign those 'petitions' that brought the measure into being... Should be an interesting spring... bbbbmer 2009-12-22T17:39:57Z Seth Sandronsky comment-19727 2009-12-22T14:18:54Z 2009-12-22T14:18:54Z I support human beings, Jim. Is that clear? What causes people to leave home to search for paid work? Could part of the answer be so-called “free-trade” policies such as the NAFTA? Recall that the NAFTA passed, barely, under a Democratic president 15 years ago. The NAFTA increased U.S. agribusiness exports to Mexico. This has destroyed the livelihoods of its peasant farmers. They immigrate north to find paid work, mainly in agriculture and construction. Oh, and the stagnation of U.S. workers’ real wages? This trend precedes the NAFTA by over two decades. What triggered this wage trend? The answer is market competition that creates winners and losers. Corporations in Germany and Japan rose from their deathbeds after WW II. They began to compete with growing success against U.S. corporations for profits and market share. To try and restore profitability, U.S. corporations attacked labor unions and social programs. A leading thinker in this corporate campaign was Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. He, as a corporate lawyer, wrote a 1971 memo that urged business to ideologically and politically confront the popular movements (Civil Rights and Vietnam War) of the day. Later, Democrats and GOPsters did that via laws to deregulate, deunionize, etc. to satisfy their corporate donors. Jim, you, I and tens of millions of working people in the U.S. live in the present moment of this recent history. I end with a rough draft of a question that leaves behind description for prescription. Who benefits from groups of workers being at odds with each other over buyers for their labor services? Seth Sandronsky 2009-12-22T14:18:54Z The Parrhesiac comment-19717 2009-12-22T03:59:21Z 2009-12-22T03:59:21Z Yeah you tell them Seth... hmm wait a darn minute.. you support illegal aliens. Wow...I wonder what the effect of importing cheap labor is on wages...geez let me think. Oh thats right... 20-30 million illegal immigrants taking lower rung jobs drives down wages and takes up affordable housing stock while raising rental rates... Oh yeah..and those lower rung jobs..the ones that Americans used to fill...have been filled by mostly illegal immigrants, which raised the rungs, or filled the positions on the ladder, for the working poor...driving many poor and uneducated onto the welfare roles or to homelessness...And now that most of the lower rung jobs are filled with illegal immigrants...they tend to only hire other illegal immigrants who speak Spanish... Hmm but Americans wont do those jobs? Well Seth...guess what would happen if your friends didn't import cheap illegal labor into the country....Geez the employers just might be forced to raise wages enough to attract Americans who don't live three or four families in one house to survive. Dam Seth....how do you rationalize your positions? The Parrhesiac 2009-12-22T03:59:21Z The Parrhesiac comment-19716 2009-12-22T03:49:22Z 2009-12-22T03:49:22Z Developers have the same hurdles in other communities. The difference with this program is that it allowed developers to BEGIN construction before there was final approval of their proposal. All other requirements are pretty much the same. The problem with letting fat cat developers start projects before they are approved...if they have any problems with the City later..they immediately scream.. "WE ALREADY SPENT MILLIONS!" Just like Nestle did... well as far as I am concerned, they did so at their own peril. But, as with what happened with Nestle..when a big developer screams.. the council immediately bends over on behalf of the community. The Parrhesiac 2009-12-22T03:49:22Z The Parrhesiac comment-19715 2009-12-22T03:44:12Z 2009-12-22T03:44:12Z yeah you tell them bbbbmer...Obama had nothing to do with bailing out the bankers did he... The Parrhesiac 2009-12-22T03:44:12Z bbbbmer comment-19704 2009-12-21T19:27:33Z 2009-12-21T19:27:33Z Trickle down econ didn't work for the senile Reagan, and it hasn't worked here... The 'Chamber' needs a lesson in ECON 101 from a TRUTHFUL teacher... instead of Arthur Laffer...(author of 'The Laffer Curve' that helped get us into a lot of our current mess -- with the help of the repeal of Glass Steagal, and an enabling Bush/Cheney Whitehouse complete with Wall Street giveaways and a banking free for all....)..... bbbbmer 2009-12-21T19:27:33Z bbbbmer comment-19703 2009-12-21T19:22:38Z 2009-12-21T19:22:38Z More delusional tripe from Das Chamber (pot)... always in singular denial of the harm the policies it advocates brings to people of modest means, especially with regard to fair compensation, collective bargaining, the environment, and poverty... It's like Matt and his ilk live in some sort of 'cupcake land' where corporations are viewed as the saviours of economic miasma, and the long suffering people are wisked away in silence behind a barricade -- usually a prison wall... bbbbmer 2009-12-21T19:22:38Z savemidtown comment-19694 2009-12-21T04:55:03Z 2009-12-21T04:55:03Z There is more to Sacramento than just the city. What about the region? I'm still hearing assertions but no facts or details on how our region is unfriendly to business. There is much more to business than just the development community. But ...exactly how is our development process more cumbersome? Higher fees? The city waives most fees on infill as an incentive for infill projects. Oh you have to go through design reivew? Well yes...and just because Roseville doesn't have design reivew (& it's sadly obvious) doesn't mean Sacramento doesn't need it. & Yes, Sacramento has weathered past recessions better than other parts of the state. In the early 1990's the Los Angeles area was his especially hard due to the offshoring of jobs in advanced manufacturing and aerospace. In the late 1990's and early 2000's it was the bay area whose bubble burst during the dot com bust. This one is more widespread but again, the states total unemployment rate has been around 12 % and the four county Sacramento Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) of Yolo, Placer, El Dorado and Sacramento counties has been hovering about 10% - very high yes but when compared to the rest of the state - we are still faring ok. Not great - but OK. And don't forget the obvious, when you take away 15% of pay from 18% of the regions workforce through furloughs, everyone is going to suffer. And again - following rules and having regulatory mechanisms in place does NOT make a region unfriendly to business - it means we think highly enough of ourselves to demand some respect from those who choose to do business here. savemidtown 2009-12-21T04:55:03Z William Burg comment-19691 2009-12-21T04:04:53Z 2009-12-21T04:04:53Z And therein lies the solution--if developers have an easier time in other cities, it's time to look at those cities and find out what they do differently and how they do it. I would assume that these other cities don't simply do it by putting in loopholes that let projects slip through without CEQA review. William Burg 2009-12-21T04:04:53Z Shawn Eldredge comment-19689 2009-12-21T03:15:13Z 2009-12-21T03:15:13Z i have spoken with many developers from outside the area ( LA area, Bay area, and even our locals who also build in Folsom Roseville etc.) and they all have said prior to fpp program Sacramento has been the hardest to get through the system from initial plan submission to permit issuance ( they all have to meet the same building codes in the end). As well as design review , zoning admin hearings etc. Then there is our lack of commitment in the city as as general direction ( or that cheesy word " vision" ) is concerned , How many K street mtgs. have been held without action , arena , I-5, Broadway ,bus depot, river front ,Mo Mohanna ,towers , etc, etc, with no action. Honestly I don’t know all the details on why other cities are " more business friendly " than Sacramento. especially in the development services area. ( i am looking into the details of their development services departments vs ours ) I do know that clear & honest communication within our various departments ( EDD, SHRA, Mayor & Council, etc) .is critical. Political posturing & self interest cannot be more important than the good of the city ever ! It is clear that political self interest and posturing has crippled our city . Its in these tough times that we have no choice but to demand better & the best tool is our vote Shawn Eldredge Shawn Eldredge 2009-12-21T03:15:13Z Seth Sandronsky comment-19674 2009-12-20T15:33:02Z 2009-12-20T15:33:02Z Real wages (what people can buy) with their pay has been stagnant for more than 30 years. At the same time, people’s productivity (output per-person each labor hour) has boomed. But workers have not reaped the benefits of their productivity gains. Guess who has? Sure, this trend is a bit hard to see. Yet it is the root of the economic crisis now. To sum up, the current recession is the result of inequity between the working majority and a sedentary minority since the early 1970s. Since then, U.S. households have coped with wage stagnation two main ways. One is to work longer hours. The other is to borrow more money. Together, both practices have helped them to maintain their living standards. I end with a brief word on financial bubbles, most recently in housing. This bubble and those before it boost consumer spending absent a rise in real wages. Financial bubbles are the effect, not the cause, of the widening gap between the upper class and everyone else. Seth Sandronsky 2009-12-20T15:33:02Z Rhys02 comment-19619 2009-12-20T02:30:38Z 2009-12-20T02:30:38Z Weather the last three recessions better than the rest of the state?? I suppose if the local economy is so flat there is no where to go, you're right. It is easier to get an abortion, go on welfare, or get a prescription for marijuana than it is to open a business in Sacramento. This city council, along with many of the unelected so-called neighborhood groups look at every business proposal as something to be green mailed. The only areas of Sacramento that have been surviving the recessions are outside the city limits... Rhys02 2009-12-20T02:30:38Z William Burg comment-19617 2009-12-20T00:27:21Z 2009-12-20T00:27:21Z That's why we have a government based on the consent of the governed--but when is the last time you voted to elect your boss? William Burg 2009-12-20T00:27:21Z HonestAbe comment-19608 2009-12-19T20:46:00Z 2009-12-19T20:46:00Z No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. HonestAbe 2009-12-19T20:46:00Z savemidtown comment-19595 2009-12-19T18:17:39Z 2009-12-19T18:17:39Z It's a nice theory Matt but those ideas of feedback and multiplier effects back into the economy have not been the reality for at least two decades. Globalization has made this argument that the larger business community reinvests in the community irrelevant as we continue to cycle out of the goods producing era in the United States. Sacramento has a pretty good diversified economy with a decent balance of goods producing, service producing and private eduational and health services balanced with a large public sector as the State Govt HQ. This reasonable balance has allowed Sacramento to weather the past three recessions better than other parts of the state. The ongoing argument that government is antithetical to business is just absurd. Anti-trust policies enforced by government keep competition open, and regulation that protects citizens is a good thing. Citizens poisioned by effulents don't make good consumers. And every time the mimimum wage is raised business screams about how it will run them out well...hasn't happened so far. Some in the business community are like a black hole, no matter how much they are given it is never enough. This notion that Sacramento is unfriendly to business is just an absurd assertion not backed up with any facts. Mr. Mahood can you provide sustantive and quantifiable facts as to how Sacramento (city/ county/ region) is unfriendly to business? Not anecdotes as it is a fact that anecdotes are biased and not representative of the population. Just because your buddies got some resistance on Nestle and the fact that you don't have enough cash to buy off everyone doesn't mean the region is unfriendly to business. savemidtown 2009-12-19T18:17:39Z William Burg comment-19593 2009-12-19T17:43:54Z 2009-12-19T17:43:54Z Business doesn't have to be accountable to the public if it can get the government to act as its hatchet man. Many of those skeletons on K Street weren't the result of market forces but one portion of the private sector using taxpayer-supported programs to expand its own control. Government and business are partners far more often than they are opponents, and attempts by business to make government the servant in their mutual relationship tends to result in economic instability--as we can see on the national level as well as the local level. Regulation on Wall Street is the macro picture, but that doesn't mean regulation on K Street isn't needed. The rules of government should be fair and neutral, and special regulations designed to favor a certain class of companies (like the FPP) is neither fair nor neutral. Government is not an economy--at best, it can only facilitate the growth of the private sector. We both agree on that. Regulation stabilizes that growth, in order to avoid things like the real estate bubble and the derivatives market. It levels out the highs, and balances the lows, favoring long-term stability over short-term gain and the frequent crashes that come with it. William Burg 2009-12-19T17:43:54Z RichardRich comment-19591 2009-12-19T16:44:58Z 2009-12-19T16:44:58Z Sacramento businesses are intimately accountable to the public, Bill. We vote by spending, or not, everyday. Look at the skeletons of business glories past lining K Street. We voted. They're gone. Now, if you're talking about regulation of Wall Street, I'm with you. But I believe Matt's talking about business here in Sacramento. And while government is an industry, it is not an economy, and like other healthy regions, Sacramento needs a broad based economy. Just like when one branch of government oversteps, another steps in to check it; when one branch of the economy oversteps (business, labor, government) others step in. Here, now, many believe political maneuvering threatens to restrain trade, so business is stepping up. RichardRich 2009-12-19T16:44:58Z The Parrhesiac comment-19575 2009-12-19T04:21:46Z 2009-12-19T04:21:46Z Are you on crack? How are "we" shaping our "politicians" they do as they please, and almost always ignore the People. The Parrhesiac 2009-12-19T04:21:46Z William Burg comment-19570 2009-12-19T02:24:26Z 2009-12-19T02:24:26Z Interesting how supporting a regulatory loophole that flies in the face of California law is considered "accountability" by some. Business should be accountable to the public, and only regulation has the power to do so--unless they can circumvent regulation through a firm yank on their pet politician's leash. William Burg 2009-12-19T02:24:26Z RichardRich comment-19568 2009-12-19T01:32:40Z 2009-12-19T01:32:40Z Matt, you are so right. Winston Churchill's famous quote comes to mind, modified here, "We shape our politicians, and thereafter, they shape us." RichardRich 2009-12-19T01:32:40Z