The La Palma City Council agreed last Tuesday to delay the appointment of a nine-member economic development task force after an impassioned plea from a former mayor to rethink the proposal.
The recommendation came from Mayor Marshall Goodman and Council member Nitesh Patel, both of whom had been appointed to a two-member ad-hoc subcommittee on economic development a year ago, whose final report submitted included the proposal along with other findings from their work.
According to the city’s staff report, the immediate findings of their ad-hoc economic development subcommittee are available at city hall.
As part of that report, the ad-hoc committee recommended a nine-member Economic Development Task Force to create a longer-term plan to navigate the future.
As proposed, their nine-member Task Force was to include two city Council members, one development and circulation committee member, one community activities and beautification committee member, one business owner representative, one commercial property owner representative, one commercial property owner, and three at-large representatives, preferably with commercial real estate or construction experience.
In addition, the Goodman/Patel ad-hoc committee also recommended bringing in a consulting firm to perform an economic development study for the city to adjust its EDP 2030.
According to their report, the Task Force was proposed to review existing goals of the city related to economic development, review the city’s Economic Development Plan 2030, act as “ambassadors” to provide outreach, engagement, and education on behalf of the City of La Palma to the business community.
In addition, the Task Force would more broadly act on whatever recommendations would have come from the consulting firm’s economic development study.
Former Mayor and Council member Gerard Goedhart, who spoke during the meeting’s oral communications session, pleaded with the Council to rethink the proposal before approving it.
“In 2012, the city had a very big financial problem,” said Goedhart, and I was elected to try and solve that. We did solve that,” he said, “and the budget is still doing alright.”
Despite the city’s obviously and overall need for economic development, Goedhart first recounted the city’s financial problem of a decade ago, which he said required a 20 percent cut in staff positions within the city and a 10 percent pay reduction for the staff members who remained.
He said these drastic cuts were required to keep the city in financial solvency.
“And that still wasn’t enough,” he said.
In addition, he said the city had to go to the public in 2016 to approve a one percent sales tax to retain the police department.
“The public passed it with 61 percent approval but that didn’t solve the problem, but it did give us more time to deal with economic development in the city,” he said.
“The budget is still doing alright,” said Goedhart, “however, the economic development component has been somewhat neglected,” he suggested.
“When the pandemic hit, everything went by the wayside,” he conceded.
He said the city has had a 27% increase in personnel costs in the past three years while revenues to the city only increased by eight percent.
“Those are fixed costs. Now, you can only vary if you begin to decrease benefits,” he said. “That’s not fun,” Goedhart said.
Goedhart said while he agrees with an economic study, “I also disagree strongly” with the Task Force.
“I just see it (nine-member Task Force), frankly, as a big waste of time,” said Goedhart. Moreover, having a commission with only two elected representatives “sends a bad message” to constituents. “You need to show that this is important, let’s not put style over substance.”
Goedhart suggested the Council first take action to show their constituents that they, the elected officials, consider economic development a priority.
Other Council members began making comments and suggestions.
Mayor Pro-tem Mark Waldman said, “It begs the question, why are we trying to establish the task force, what’s the thinking behind that.”“Maybe we should just do a Town Hall, you know, to educate people, get ideas that way, instead of doing continual meetings, because it just seems like it’ll be very cumbersome, and especially if people are not knowledgeable in the field, then it’s just going to make things really drag out,” suggested Council Member Debbie Baker.
“I think that it’s (Task Force) just going to be ineffective,” said Council Member Janet Keo.
While agreeing to allow more time to think about it, both Goodman and Patel suggested that eventually, the city will have to expand its influence with some type of outreach.
Patel said Goedhart is “absolutely right. It is the Council’s job to determine that and move forward with it. Can we? Can we do it with the Council we have now or are we asking for business guidance through our business community,” he wondered.
“Am I opposed to not having the Task Force either, fine, no,” he said. Do I think we should maybe give it a try, maybe, and push it and see what happens before seeking outside advice, yes,” said Patel.
He also presented to the Council much of the reasoning behind the recommendation, including the city’s lack of developers, and said he was not opposed to postponing until there is a new Mayor and council sworn in.
“Maybe nine is not the right number (of representatives),” said Patel, “because that’s a lot of people. “Maybe three, maybe five, but “we are going to need a task force.”
Goodman, who terms out this year, said his whole reason for running for the Council was to work on the city’s economic development.
“My reason in coming onto the Council,” said Goodman, “was economic development.
“I saw the need for improving our residential centers, during the general plan update,” the mayor said. “We need to figure out how best to use the areas that we can for commercial purposes.”
During his time on the Council, he said the city did succeed in bringing a new hotel to the table, but once COVID kicked in, it never happened.
“But it did let businesses know that La Palma’s doors were open for business,” he added.
The mayor said he thinks the Task Force is essential to create continuity and give all stakeholders a “seat at the table.”
He said the nine-member Task Force was well thought out to include a broad mix of professionals, all of whom Goodman said he thought would be critical in implementing new economic development plans in the long term.
“Having these at large representatives will allow us an opportunity to educate them so we can give and get feedback from residents what that will do for council what that will do for our economic development manager is inform some residents,” he said.
“It’s a step in the door instead of sending out flyers and doing any of these things that may cost money,” the mayor said.
Nevertheless, the Mayor said he was okay with going forward with the Economic Development study and allowing the Council to rethink the proposed Task Force.
In the end, the Council unanimously agreed to move forward with the process of facilitating a qualified consulting firm to perform a detailed economic development study for the city while putting the proposed task force on the back burner, at least for now.