Blogs of the LA Area Chamber

Today is the birthday of our great nation. A day of celebration, parades, picnics and good times with family and friends. It should also be a day of gratitude.

Gratitude for the founders of our nation, whose courage, dreams, and wisdom created the greatest democracy and incubator of free enterprise on earth. Gratitude for the freedom and personal liberties provided in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Gratitude for the peaceful transition of elected leadership at all levels of government, even after hard-fought and divisive campaigns.

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This coming Fourth of July weekend will be extremely busy at Los Angeles International Airport. Travelers during the biggest holiday weekend of the summer will be part of an estimated 25.6 million summer passengers, a 2.7 percent increase over 2016. As traveler counts continue to rise, so does investment in the number one origin and destination airport in the world.

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When I wrote about the Los Angeles City Council's approval of the Wilshire Grand project in April 2011, the City was struggling to emerge from the recession. The promise of a new Wilshire Grand was a delicate balance of vision, commitment to L.A. and a test of private and public sector leadership. Now, after six years of watching this vision come to life at the corner of Wilshire and Figueroa, we eagerly anticipate the ribbon-cutting and dedication ceremony this Friday.

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Ambar Garcia, who lives just north of downtown Los Angeles, said she’s thankful her two daughters have health coverage through California’s version of Medicaid, the government program for low-income people.

That’s one less bill to worry about. But Garcia, a 30-year-old receptionist at a dental office, said she still has trouble paying the rest.

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As students and families celebrate recent high school commencements, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce congratulates all of our high school graduates. We also applaud the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for improving its high school graduation rate by an unprecedented five percentage points in one year, while at the same time stepping up completion requirements and university eligibility.

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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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