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BACKGROUND For the past thirteen years, the City of Pleasanton has had a strategic plan to help guide the City's economic development efforts. These plans are developed through the Economic Vitality Committee with assistance from staff and consultants. While recognizing that strategic plans don't expire per se, the most recent plan was developed for fiscal years 2003/04 and 2004/05. Also, considering that the Ciry of Pleasanton is approaching build-out, it is appropriate to review and revise the City's economic development goals and programs to maintain and strengthen the local business community. Recognizing the importance of economic development efforts to the long- term stability of the community, the current City Council Work Plan identifies completing an update to the City's Economic Vitality Strategic Plan as a priority project. Over the eighteen months, the EVC has been working with both Bay Area Economics and with Economic Development, Finance and Planning staff to prepare an updated Economic Development Strategic Plan. Through a series of meetings, the EVC advised BAE on issues that affect Pleasanton's business community and offered input as background information was collected and analyzed. This information -collected from various sources including published plans and reports, published and unpublished data and key stakeholder interviews -was compiled into a Background Report that serves to provide factual data and analysis of trends and conditions to support strategic planning efforts. Using the background report as a foundation, BAE prepared a preliminary draft Economic Development Strategic Plan (Attachment 1) for the EVC. The EVC discussed and extensively edited the draft on numerous occasions so that the strategic plan reflects the collective members' perspective relative to the business and/or community segment they represent. At a joint City Council-Economic Vitality Committee workshop in February 2006, the EVC solicited feedback from the Council regarding the goals, policies and strategies included in the draft strategic plan. Based on that discussion, the Council's comments were considered by the EVC and to large extent incorporated into the final draft strategic plan. DISCUSSION The draft Economic Development Strategic Plan was commissioned to meet several ends: to maintain and continue to foster Pleasanton's competitive advantages, to mitigate weaknesses, and to link ongoing economic development to the General Plan. The plan will provide broad guidance for the future of Pleasanton's economic development, as well as provide specific near-, mid-, and long-term implementation actions. To provide a framework for presenting specific goals, policies and strategies the `Summary of Economic Trends' highlights a number of competitive strengths: • Residential community characterized by high household incomes, low unemployment, strong educational attainment, and a concentration of middle- aged residents • Growth in total jobs, leading to a rising number of in-commuters Page 2 of 4