The economy has continued to recover in just fits and starts since 2007, and has been particularly hard on workers in construction and building trades. But in August, Paul Farmer, CEO of the Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce, did some back-of-envelope calculations that showed a rosy projection: From 2015 through 2020, there is already at least $3.2 billion worth of planned construction in Monterey County.
“And that’s not holistic,” Farmer says. “The actual number is probably more like $6 billion.”
Farmer is the organizer of the Buy Local Coalition, a group of business heavyweights that first came together in 2013 to strategize about how to keep more of those construction jobs local. Coalition members include the Salinas Valley and Monterey Peninsula chambers of commerce, Central Coast Builders Association, Monterey County Farm Bureau, Salinas United Business Association and Oldtown Salinas Association.
The group was sidelined briefly by its fight to oppose the county’s plan to buy the old Capital One building on Schilling Place for office space, which they argue will have negative impact on foot traffic and commerce in Oldtown Salinas. (They lost that battle; the county bought the building last year for $36 million.)
The coalition is officially reviving Jan. 8, despite a failed effort this fall to raise $50,000 to get funding for a tedious initiative: combing through meeting agendas and minutes for all public agencies to create a thorough report card of how government is doing when it comes to awarding contracts to local businesses.
The vision is to encourage local governments, including 17 special districts (like Monterey-Salinas Transit, the Transportation Agency for Monterey County and Salinas Valley Solid Waste Authority) to approve local purchasing preference policies.
“It’s like a tub of sharks,” says Christie Cromeenes, director of the Central Coast Builders Association. “Everyone from other cities is coming to our pool and swimming around us because we’re not giving a preference to our local companies.”
Cromeenes cites the local purchasing policy in Los Angeles, which awards contracts to local bidders that are up to 8-percent more costly than out-of-town bidders. LA’s policy was based on their finding that 8 percent was the break-even point: Even if the job itself costs more, local workers reinvest, keeping the total impact to taxpayers cost-neutral.