Blogs of the LA Area Chamber

Last Friday marked the deadline to get bills out of the house of origin for the California Legislature. More than 600 bills were voted on last week.

The good news is that the business community had some significant victories in defeating or stalling legislation that would have made it harder and more expensive to do business in California. Included were:  AB 5 (Fletcher-Gonzalez), an overly burdensome scheduling mandate on employers; SB 705 (Allen), a costly mandate prohibiting food establishments from using take-out containers made of polystyrene foam; SB 57 (Stern), which would threaten Southern California's energy reliability by shuttering Aliso Canyon.

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The proposal passed the state Senate and now heads to the Assembly, but with few details on how to foot the $400-billion-a-year cost for the plan, the prospects don't look too sunny.

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In 2013, the Los Angeles City Council approved the Specific Plan Amendment Study (SPAS), which charted a path for the $14 billion in improvements that are underway today at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The passage of SPAS was a major step forward for LAX and the L.A. regional economy as it laid out plans for projects that would kick-start desperately needed modernization investments by LAWA and the airlines that serve LAX.  The new plan was supported by a broad coalition of community groups headed up by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and the LA/Orange County Building & Construction Trades Council.

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Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown released his May budget revision that affirmed the State’s commitment to college affordability and student success.

Earlier this year, the Chamber and our members championed a robust higher education agenda during our annual Access Sacramento advocacy trip. We called for investments to improve community college pathways, spur innovation in higher education, protect our state’s most vulnerable students--including foster and undocumented youth--and repeal an 11.3 percent cut to Cal Grants for students attending private, non-profit institutions.

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Two weeks ago, this Business Perspective alerted readers that the County of L.A. was considering using Measure H revenue to back-fill an October 2015 commitment to increase its general fund allocation for housing and services for the homeless by $100 million over several years. This motion in October 2015 was heralded as strong leadership by the County in addressing the growing homelessness crisis.  

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This Friday is the deadline to register for ACCESS Washington, D.C., the region's largest annual trip to our nation's capital. With a new Presidential Administration and Congress focusing on a broad range of major issues, your voice is more important than ever in sharing the impact that new policies would have on your business, your customers and Southern California as a whole.

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Apple. Mattel. The Walt Disney Company. Huge, successful companies that have something in common -- they all started as small businesses. Like these companies, today's small businesses have the power to transform industries, communities and the world as we know it. Small businesses drive innovations and power our economy. They are responsible for the majority of our job growth.

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In November and March, the voters of the City and County of Los Angeles stepped up in an unprecedented way to invest in infrastructure. None of those investments were more critical than the new tax dollars Angelenos agreed to provide to build the infrastructure of compassion, creating needed housing and funding services to meet the challenge of homelessnes

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Beginning the night of Friday, May 12, the largest airline terminal relocation in the history of aviation will take place at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Delta Air Lines will relocate all their gates from Terminals 5 and 6 to Terminals 2 and 3. The airlines that are Delta partners and are currently located in Terminals 2 and 3 will remain in those terminals. Other airlines currently located in Terminals 2 and 3 will move to the terminals being vacated by Delta on the south side of the airport. This move will impact 370 departures, or 40 percent of LAX's operations.

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This Thursday, Mayor Eric Garcetti will give his fourth State of the City (SOTC) address, and his first since he was overwhelmingly re-elected in March to a five and half year second term. Los Angeles has a lot to be proud of since the Mayor's last SOTC. The results of the November and March elections were a clear statement by the electorate on their priorities. We look forward to hearing the Mayor lay out his next steps on these issues:

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