$45,000 annual
payment for Moving Solano Forward wins Fairfield council support
By Ryan McCarthy From page A8 |
March 22, 2017
FAIRFIELD — Increasing the city’s yearly
$10,000 payment to $45,000 for the Moving Solano Forward campaign to boost
economic development won Fairfield City Council support Tuesday.
“We want to move forward,” Mayor Harry Price
said.
The direction to staff followed a report from
Robert Burris, economic development and workforce housing division manager for
the city, about Moving Solano Forward.
“Think of economic development as a team
sport,” Burris said.
Cities and Solano County can’t do it all on
their own, he said, noting work by the Solano Economic Development
Corporation. He cited plans by Blue Apron, a company that sends customers
foods to prepare at home, to open a fulfillment center on Cordelia Road and
bring what the city staff said will involve about 1,000 jobs in Fairfield.
“We all group together to make things happen,”
Burris said.
Sandy Person, chief executive officer of
the Solano Economic Development Corporation, told the City Council about the
“Solano Means Business” strategy introduced at the March 10 meeting of the
organization at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fairfield.
“It’s bringing our ‘A game’ to a world
platform,” Person said.
More than 4,300 new jobs came to Solano County
last year, she said.
Person said that, “economic development
is exceptionally complicated” and that the Solano EDC works with what she
called “Fairfield’s premier staff.”
“We all have a hand in that,” she said of new
jobs in the region.
A Fairfield city staff report said money is
not in the budget for the increased city payment but the extra $35,000 could be
added to the upcoming budget.
“For this strategy to be successful, new
investment is required,” the report said.
“It is expected that the future new investment
and job creation resulting from greater economic development and marketing
activities will create an economic impact ‘ripple effect’ of returns to the
city that will by far exceed this level of investment,” the report said.
Funding from cities is based on population.
A $453,460 grant from the federal Office of
Economic Adjustment paid for a second phase of the Solano project and follows
the first part that received $370,000 in federal money and paid consultant
Economic Planning Systems Inc. for an economic diversity report.
Person said the effort began about five years
ago and involves the region relying less economically on Travis Air Force Base.
Reach Ryan McCarthy at
427-6935 or rmccarthy@dailyrepublic.net.
