Small Business Saturday, which is Nov. 29, and a plan for an Industrial Park transportation and employment center were discussed by the Economic Development Board on Wednesday.

“Small Business Saturday is celebrating its fourth year, the Saturday after Thanksgiving,” Administrative Secretary Teri Davena told the EDB. The event, launched by American Express as a “way to celebrate small our independent businesses and help them stay in business and keep our money local,” is sponsored locally by the city Office of Economic Development, Benicia Main Street and the Chamber of Commerce.

“Main Street recruited businesses, making phone calls, knocking on doors, seeing who would participate,” Davena said. Participating businesses “just need to be open that day and celebrate.”

Benicia Main Street recruited the first 20 businesses downtown, then another 29 signed up, she said.

Also Wednesday, interim Community Development Director Dan Marks led a workshop about the Industrial Park Transportation and Employment Center Plan, a long-range plan focused on improving transportation options in the Industrial Park.

The workshop was intended to give members of the community an opportunity to hear what the plans were for the center, and to give their own input.

Marks called the area in the Industrial Park a PDA, or Priority Development Area. Senate Bill 375, passed in 2008, required that regional planning areas in the Bay Area prepare a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through land use and transportation.

“How do you reduce greenhouse gas through land use and transportation? By focusing development around transit, transportation corridors, buses, and other ways to get people out of their cars — find ways to focus development so people get out of their cars,” Marks said.

“For us, our main goal is for it to continue to be a healthy park, and to grow and be sustainable in the long run.”

A workshop to identify policies and improvement options will be held in Feburary 2015, a Planning Commission workshop will be in May 2015 to consider a draft concept plan with alternative approaches, and a draft plan hearing with the Planning Commission will be in September 2015.

“If all goes well it will be at the Council in October,” Marks said.

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