High-Techs, Biomeds Need Full Support : Business: City must respond unequivocally if it wants to stay in the game. All mayoral candidates should take ‘San Diego Pledge.’

San Diego is at a historic crossroads. The recession is painful but is providing us the opportunity to effect needed changes. Government locally and statewide is finally getting the message that we are losing our competitiveness and that we are regulating ourselves out of the market.

It’s a wake-up call, one that business and government must not ignore. We need to reverse this trend quickly, and with a high-profile turnaround.

San Diego and California are undergoing a major restructuring of our economic bases. In San Diego, high-tech and biomed companies are no longer just emerging. They are maturing so rapidly that they are now becoming the dominant force in our community. Their CEOs are becoming our new leaders. This is wonderful. But they feel enormous frustration. They want to stay here, prosper here and grow here. But all they have gotten to date are mild words of support with no specifics.

Think of it. How can a CEO commit and risk the millions of dollars it takes to create plants, research and development, jobs, machinery and products if he doesn’t know that tomorrow the rules won’t change and his efforts won’t be stymied? A strategic plan requires extensive budgeting, not only of time, talent and money, but it must coordinate product development and marketing with governmental approvals. The variables must be accurately projected and carefully controlled. Many of our high-tech and biomed companies are already thinking of leaving because they can’t count on these with certainty.

Would a Solar, General Dynamics, Nassco, Teledyne Ryan or any of our current major employers ever have been able to start here if they had faced the uncertainties that today define our San Diego environment?

No chance.

An executive at one of our major biomed firms recently told me that his company is constantly being courted heavily by other states. Governors call and dangle juicy packages, and mayors beg for their relocation. (Can you imagine our mayor lowering herself to call upon business?)

He said, “The incentives offered are not nearly as positive or persuasive on the one hand as our government’s business attitude and overzealous regulations are negative on the other.”

In other words, all the enticements could be substantially mitigated and offset if we would just stop trying to force these firms out of San Diego. They don’t want to leave this place. They are begging for an excuse to stay.

Why should San Diegans care?

We have long bemoaned San Diego’s shortage of corporate headquarters and the business they spawn and the contributions they and their executives make in a community. Well, these biomed and high-tech companies are corporate headquarters, and they’re right under our noses.

Perhaps more importantly, the wages produced by these companies are substantial and greatly impact our community’s need for a higher wage base. This in turn flows positively throughout our economy.

I would like to propose a solution and issue a challenge to business, and most importantly, to local government. I want to call it the “San Diego pledge.”

And I would like to see each candidate in this year’s race for mayor of San Diego adopt it, promising that:

1) They will do everything in their power to support and retain our biomed/high-tech industry.

2) They will not legislate any more burdens or disincentives on them.

3) They will do everything possible to grandfather their ability to stay, grow and prosper.

4) They will mandate a fast-track permitting process so that these companies are assured of the timely production of research-and- development and manufacturing facilities.

5) They will protect these precious businesses against future legislators taxing away their ability to grow and guard them against future impact fees beyond some reasonably defined standards.

Those mayoral candidates that won’t take this pledge are bluffing. How could they support biomeds and high-techs if they won’t honor this commitment?

And, if our current legislators won’t take the pledge, hold them accountable for their deceit when they claim that jobs are No. 1.

San Diego’s future will be great and her revenues assured if we do this.