Rick Hutcheson for Palm Springs City Council

More Goals » Business Development – Critical for the Future of Palm Springs

Palm Springs has always been bigger than life, with a brand name known the world over. Supporting this brand are our current core industries: tourism and real estate, as well as health care and gaming. We must support our leading businesses -- when there are opportunities as a City to support our tourism and real estate industries, count me in!

The challenge for the future is to build upon our successes and ensure that our core industries remain strong, while diversifying our local economy. I believe we should work to expand the city’s revenue base beyond property taxes on real estate, the hotel tax paid by tourists, and sales taxes from retail. We need to create new jobs for graduates of Palm Springs High, as well as for persons who move here because of our weather, neighborhoods and natural beauty, and who still want to work.

What is the best way to build prosperity by diversifying our local economy? I spent most of my career as a business development executive, identifying new business opportunities for companies such as Time Warner and J.D. Power Clubs, and I have experience and specific ideas about what we can do.

First, it makes sense to build on the great assets we already have and to emphasize what is particularly unique about Palm Springs. We should leverage our wonderful, expanded Convention Center, the Coachella Valley’s only International Airport, our architecture that draws visitors from around the world, and our natural resources such as the Chino Cone, our hiking trails and open spaces. There are wonderful possibilities for our Bureau of Tourism to emphasize the importance of eco-tourism. And we should look to renewable energy, which takes advantage of our year-round sunshine and our wind.

Solutions I’ll work for on City Council:

Create attractive zoning for new business. As Planning Commissioner, I supported and voted for new areas zoned for business and industry as part of our new General Plan. City Council has approved this new zoning. We need to look at enhancing these zones with fast track permits and deferred fees.
Let’s involve some of the talented people who have moved here after extraordinary careers in other cities, whose expertise is being underutilized, and identify a select few business sectors particularly suited to Palm Springs. Then let’s build specific plans to target companies in these sectors. I’ve proposed that we look at the following areas:
- Companies in renewable energy & conservation technology (such as solar thermal companies which use sun and otherwise low-value desert land to produce electricity), and creating jobs in the wind farm industry. Palm Springs should be the leader rather than a follower when it comes to conservation, green building and renewable energy.
- Making Palm Springs the “headquarters capital” for some of the more than 1100 California trade and industry associations. We have the prestige location and address; a wide range of housing at lower cost than may be found in most of California’s large population centers; access to major freeways; and above all the convenience of our airport and convention center, minutes from downtown.
- Emphasize our already outstanding mid-century modern architecture and design in relation to tourism and retail, in addition to real estate. We can build upon the Modern Show and Modern Week to make our unique Palm Springs heritage the basis for healthy expansion for our design and furnishings and arts communities.
For these initiatives to succeed, however, we must work harder to make this city more business friendly. At City Hall, we need to encourage a customer service attitude which comes across to new businesses as “how can I help you accomplish your goals” instead of “these are my rules that you must follow.” We need expediters in our Building and Planning Departments to help individuals, small businesses and newcomers through our process, so they can be on a level playing field with big developers who already know their way around.

In the weeks ahead, I’ll be sharing some of my ideas for Palm Springs in this space as well as on my website, www.RickHutcheson.com. I would appreciate your suggestions and ideas. Please email me at Rick@RickHutcheson.com. Thank you!

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