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<br />attract businesses that are a good fit with the resident worker population; the new Policy <br />D, to work with businesses towards common goals; to look at regional collaboration with <br />a local focus; Goal 3, the financial impact report for the General Plan; recognizing land <br />use connections to the economy, the environment and social sustain ability. He agreed <br />with the concept that the economy is the driver for the city revenue. Regarding Policy 7, <br />enterprise funds, he noted discussions about community choice aggregation of electric <br />purchases for the city. That is an enterprise business for the city and could have <br />revenue streams associated with it. There are opportunities for economic development <br />to keep our electric dollars in the city instead of going out to other major corporations. <br />One of the things he was concerned about is Program 8.2 and 8.3, which include the <br />word "prohibif'. He felt there should be a little more flexibility by using the word <br />"discourage" or other such word. Under Policy 1 0, capital improvements, he felt there <br />should be better prioritizing of projects. With Policy 14, he wanted to continue to <br />manage the city's financial assets in a sound and prudent manner. He stated he <br />wanted to continue to hear ideas, even if he did not agree with them. There is time to <br />work through things and modify things here and there to reach agreement. Things like <br />the Stoneridge extensions have caused lines to be drawn in the sand, but he felt there <br />were still ideas to solve regional transportation problems. Pleasanton contributes to that <br />problem and he felt there were ideas in the Economic Strategic Plan that could help <br />solve the problems. Some of the policies that struck a chord with him were <br />diversification of the economic base and attracting innovative of other technical <br />industries not presently in the city, such as energy related programs for small <br />businesses. He noted several things that could be done and that there is an agenda <br />item on the March 21 Council meeting to further discuss this. He noted the east side of <br />Pleasanton could have new industrial business to provide a diverse job base and <br />perhaps provide higher paying jobs than retail. He felt the repositioning idea was <br />important and that types of business need to change over time. He believed the <br />Hacienda Business Park was an example of that and felt it was a huge opportunity. He <br />commented on the discussion of fiscal revenue and need to understand long-term <br />effects. He believed tourism for the wine country was a great idea. He agreed there <br />should be a review of local purchasing policy for the city and a campaign aimed to the <br />residents makes sense. He agreed with the broad goals for affordable housing <br />contained in the report and felt there were a number of ways to do that. Council has a <br />workshop on affordable housing coming in March. He was concerned about the idea of <br />converting apartments to condominiums because apartments are the most affordable <br />housing for the retail work force sector. The other side of the work force housing and <br />affordability problem is wages. Perhaps there should be more discussion of a living <br />wage. He complimented the Committee on developing the Plan and continuing to work <br />on an implementation plan. That is a key piece. <br /> <br />Kristi Rocha appreciated the insightfulness of the Council and the fact that they <br />read the report and presented great comments. She invited Council to come to any of <br />the Economic Vitality Committee meetings to contribute to the planning sessions. <br /> <br />Mayor Hosterman referred to repeated comments on streamlining the permitting <br />process to make it easier for those with development projects to get them done in a <br /> <br />Joint Workshop <br />City Council/Economic Vitality <br />Committee 11 02/28/06 <br />