More than 150 CEOs and business leaders, the true job-creators of our region, today anounced their support for Nathan Fletcher’s campaign for mayor, citing his detailed plan to for job creation and ability to bring people together to make it a reality. The business leaders come from every major business sector and represent a diverse cross-section of San Diego’s business community.
“I am on the front lines, creating jobs and expanding my business in San Diego,” said Damian Esparza, Principal, Barrera & Company, Inc. “We need someone in City Hall with the kind of vision and leadership to make San Diego the World’s Most Innovative City, and to create the kind of environment that makes business owners want to invest and expand here. Nathan’s Jobs Plan is exactly the kind of forward-thinking approach that will give me the tools I need to grow my business and succeed here in San Diego.”
The list of job-creators, entrepreneurs and business leaders includes Bryan Min, CEO of Epsilon System Solutions, Damian Esparza, Principal, Barrera & Company, Inc., Dave Alberga, CEO, Active Network, Jamie Hewitt, President and CEO, Intellisolutions, Carlos Becerra, CEO, WSA Distributing, Inc.and Tina Nova, President, Genoptix. The full list can be viewed here.
“Nathan’s vision and his ability to bring people with differing views together to move our city forward is why I am supporting him for mayor,” said Bryan Min, CEO of Epsilon System Solutions. “I believe our city needs to be proactive in creating a new, vibrant economy, and Nathan’s Jobs Plan gets us moving in that direction. The world has changed, and San Diego needs a mayor whose vision reflects that.”
Nathan previously released his Jobs Plan to make San Diego the best place in the world to create good-paying, local jobs at every level of the economy. The plan can be downloaded here.
“I am honored that so many job-creators and business leaders agree San Diego is ready for a new energy, new vision and new generation of leadership,” said Nathan Fletcher. “When I am mayor, I will not only do everything in my power to ensure we are the best place in the world to create good-paying jobs, but I will also hold myself accountable for our region’s overall economic health.”
The Plan includes specific goals and metrics to hold the Fletcher Administration accountable including:
- Create a competitive environment that will contribute to the creation of 130,000 new jobs in our region by 2020.
- Increase the number of patents generated in our region 33% by 2020; measure progress each year and report the numbers.
- Increase the amount of venture capital San Diego receives 33% by 2020, bringing the total to more than a billion dollars annually.
- Increase exports from our region 33% by 2020. That would equate to a $5 billion increase, bringing our total exports to over $20 billion annually by 2020.
- And finally, to ensure balanced economic growth and ensure we have a robust middle class, the fifth goal will focus on increasing the median household income 33% by 2020. That increase of over $18,000 would bring regional median household income to close to 60,000 a year.
The plan also outlines seven areas of focus to achieve job creation metrics, including:
- Mayor as Regional Economic Leader. Focus the Office of Mayor as one dedicated to being a regional economic leader. Re-structure the City’s economic development functions into one department charged with working every day to get San Diegans working again.
- Build on Our Core Competencies. Build and maintain our core economic drivers: defense/military, tourism and technology.
- A New City for a New Economy. Modernize the City’s permitting efforts and start a new effort to incentivize job creation by offering expedited, time-certain permitting based on how many jobs a business or project will hire and the environmental standards they are meeting.
- Global City: Reintroducing San Diego to the World. The next Mayor has the opportunity to market and sell San Diego and the opportunities in our region to the rest of the nation and the world. Nathan will lead delegations aboard and throughout America to attract investment and economic advancement in San Diego.
- Protecting our Base. Protect the jobs we have. Nathan will launch small business support teams that will work outside of City Hall in the community helping San Diego business owners with permitting, regulatory compliance and accessing City services.
- Education: An Economic Issue. Bridge the gap between our current education system and the one that will bring San Diego into the future
- Infrastructure: The Foundation We Build Upon. Work to implement Nathan’s previously released infrastructure plan along with working to invest in our ports, transit, air, and rail systems of the future.
Comments 1
With respect to those economic goals, I have to ask “How do you know?” In a free-market system, all local government can do is establish proper rule of law, streamline regulation, keep taxes low and provide a stable environment. Some of Fletcher’s proposals promote those ends, so I am happy to see that, but the city isn’t a mega-corporation directed by the mayor, so these growth goals are out of the mayor’s purview.