LBPOST.com: Long Beach Named Finalist For Business-Friendly Award

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Long Beach Named Finalist For Business-Friendly Award

by Ryan ZumMallen | Long Beach News | 09.21.09 |

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Long Beach was one of six cities to be named a finalist for the 2009 Eddy Award, which celebrates the most business-friendly cities in Los Angeles County each year. It is the fourth straight year that Long Beach has been named a finalist for the award given by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC). The other cities nominated are Whittier, El Hambra, Downey, Lakewood and Torrance.

Four cities were also nominated in the �Small City� category, which includes cities with populations smaller than 60,000.

In a press release today, the LAEDC pointed to business retention efforts and employment development strategies that made Long Beach stand out.

"We're delighted that we have once again been honored as a finalist," said Robert Swayze, Manager of Economic Development and Cultural Affairs for the City, in the press release. "We've worked closely with the LAEDC on many initiatives, and to be again named as a finalist by this premier organization is a great honor all by itself.�

Long Beach leaders have made several attempts to revive business in the city this year, but with a 12.5% unemployment rate and many companies struggling to survive, 2009 has been far from perfect. Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Randy Gordon says that the city faces difficulties when it comes to being business-friendly.

�Cities that win this every year have no business license fees. We�re middle of the pack relative to development fees, construction fees and other fees,� Gordon said in a phone interview today. �It�s hard to compete with other cities who don�t have those fees.�

In today�s press release, Swayze too alluded to Long Beach�s four consecutive honorable mentions.

�Of course, we hope this year Long Beach can be the bride, not the bridesmaid,� he said.

�We�re always a finalist, but never a winner,� Gordon said. �We were a finalist because we�ve improved how we deal with enterprise zones. Without those changes, I don�t think we�re a finalist this year.�

The changes Gordon referred to included tax breaks given to businesses that retained employees and hired new ones. That move, Gordon said, was just the first of many that need to be made as Long Beach continues attempts to attract and retain businesses.

�But I am happy that we�re a finalist,� he said.

Disclosure: LBPOST.com co-founder Shaun Lumachi is a government affairs advisor to the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

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4 Comments so far.

Miffed
You have GOT to be kidding! I live in and love Long Beach, and I have had a small business here for 5 years. I should add I'm a liberal who knows it's silly to take the knee-jerk 'less government is always better' position when there are often good reasons for laws and regulations, many of them precipitated by greedy business people trying to operate unethically (as you can imagine, I'm no fan of our own knee-jerk Chamber of Commerce) . That said, the red tape that we have to deal with in Long Beach is d*** near enough to make me a conservative! It's insane how many fees and forms you have to go through, much of it unique to Long Beach, at least in the area of south LA County/north Orange County that I am familiar with. Here's just one example: I used to do trade shows, typically outside affairs on private property but also at the Convention Center, that are organized by others. What the organizers and we vendors have to contend with in Long Beach has made many of us stop doing business here. I'm sorry to see the tax revenue go elsewhere but it's not worth the hassle and expense. All we have to do is go to the surrounding cities to find a more business-friendly environment. I can't tell you how many other small business owners I've talked to that have just given up trying to do business with this city. A good friend of mine (and fellow liberal) is a city councilperson who agrees that Long Beach is NOT business-friendly. When I've pointedly asked city employees I deal with why some particular onerous regulation is needed, they say something to the effect of "it's mandated by state law". "If that's true," I ask them "then why do their neighboring cities not have the same restrictive regulations?" I never get an answer. And I haven't seen any improvement in attitudes or rules since our current businessman mayor took office. One more example and I'll get off my soapbox. Someone close to me submitted architectural plans for a business building renovation to the city planning authority last spring, well before the economy tanked in the fall. This party even paid a $10,000 expediting fee to get the review completed in TWO weeks; those were the terms.(Sounds like legalized blackmail to me but at the very least you're having to pay for the shortcomings of a department that can't get it's work done in a timely fashion). OK, City, you take the money, you need to deliver. The plans took SIX MONTHS to get reviewed and neither was the fee refunded or so much as an apology offered. But the worst of it was that the economic downturn (not the city's fault) that started in the meantime made for a MUCH less friendly financing market for the loans needed and caused the opening of that business to be delayed to the point where it had to be cancelled altogether. The building eventually went into foreclosure. And the city's (in)action played a major role in that outcome, with the resulting loss of property tax and other revenues that would have proceeded from a successful business opening.

Dennis
Is this sort of like being the best athlete on the chess team or best looking girl on the CalTech Campus? What's the competition to be "best" when it comes to being business friendly in LA County or even in California, how low is that bar?

Joe
The City of Long Beach business friendly? Yeah right! Is this a joke? The City is only friendly to big business...and that's a fact!

Long Beach JOKE
This has to be a April fools joke. Long beach is one of the worst cities to try and start a company. that is why we all have left for signal hill, and long beach blvd has been empty for 30+ years.

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LBPOST.com Managing Editor Ryan ZumMallen keeps up on all the current and breaking Long Beach news.

Ryan ZumMallen has served as the managing editor of the LBPOST.com since 2007. He graduated from CSULB with a degree in Print Journalism in 2008 and is a member of the 2009 class of Leadership Long Beach. You can find him on various basketball courts around the city.

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