Economic Development Board gets update on website, permits, more

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

A business database is being compiled. A website company has been contracted. And sustainability and streamlined permitting are on the table.

It’s all part of the evolution of Benicia’s Draft Business Development Action Plan — and a goal to remove “draft” from its title by next month.

Speaking to the Economic Development Board last week, Benicia’s Acting Economic Development Manager Mario Giuliani gave a monthly report on progress implementing the plan.

Executive Pulse Software has been commissioned to keep an up-to-the-minute database on Benicia business contacts and information, he said, to “keep track of our contacts when we go out to businesses. That will be a valuable tool.”

Another valuable tool, Giuliani said, will be the Economic Development Plan website, which EDsuite has been hired to create.

EDB Chair Kimble Goodman recommended members John Johnsen and Ann Lindsay to assist with the website development. Giuliani said staff hoped to have the website up by mid- to late March.

Progress continues in other areas as well, Giuliani said.

Licensing software is being looked at by the EDB’s Permitting Task Force to streamline the city’s business permitting process. “There’s the potential of having it very user-friendly for the patrons so they don’t have to come down to City Hall to turn in plans,” Giuliani said. “They can do it online at a great cost reduction because they wouldn’t have to print out paper plans, they could just do it electronically.”

Using the software would also reduce city costs, he said, “and it’s actually an improved service for city staff.”

The Permitting Task Force will “meet monthly for a handful of months, at which point we will expand the members from different city departments that will join us and eventually have input from members of the EDB and the business retention community,” Giuliani said.

Also discussed last week: the business plan’s sustainable management program for the Business Industrial Park.

“In the Business Development Action Plan, one of the recommended items was a program for energy audits, where we would invest approximately $125,000 to perform audits to businesses out in the Industrial Park, then have funding in the amount of $500,000 to help support those recommendations from the audits,” Giuliani said.

“If you just give an audit to a company and say, ‘Here’s what you can do to save on energy and water costs,’ but in this economy they don’t have the resources to deploy those suggestions, it doesn’t do them a lot of good,” he said. “So the plan calls for a half-million-dollar investment to do that.

“We’re looking to add some specificity to that plan and take that to City Council for approval and allocation on March 20th,” he said.

The goal to take “draft” off the Business Development Action Plan “will go the EDB February 15,” Giuliani said. Comments and suggestions heard at a citywide business conference in October will be included, he said, and on March 6 the final plan will go to City Council for review and approval.

Giuliani emphasized that under City Manager Brad Kilger, a sea change has occurred among all city employees.

“There’s a cultural shift in the staff. If you’re a librarian, you are also an economic developer. If you’re a parks worker, you are also an economic developer. Everything is related to promoting economic development.

“It’s a cultural thing Brad wants to put into the mindset of city employees,” Giuliani said. “The business development team is going to be a catalyst for that.”