The LB Redevelopment Agency, Pat West City Manager - June 3rd 2011

PAT WEST

CITY MANAGER, CITY OF LONG BEACH

Pat was born in Inglewood, California, and grew up in the Los Angeles area.

Pat has an MBA from California State University, Dominguez Hills; a Masters Degree in Recreation Administration from California State University, Los Angeles; and a BA Degree in Social Sciences from the University of California, Irvine. 

At the age of 16, Pat became an Ocean Lifeguard in Huntington Beach. He went on to be the Assistant Director of the Recreational Instructional Program at UCLA, and worked for twenty-five years with the City of Paramount as the Parks and Recreational Director; Community Development Director/Executive Director of the Redevelopment Agency; and City Manager. In August 2005, he was appointed the Director of Community Development and Executive Director of the Redevelopment Agency in Long Beach. Pat became the Long Beach City Manager in September 2007.

Pat has been married to Madelyn for more than 30 years. They have two grown children, Stacy and David.

PICTURES AND VIDEO FROM THE EVENT

SEE PICTURES FROM THE EVENT!

VIDEO OF PART OF LONG BEACH CITY MANAGER PAT WEST AT LBCREC BREAKFAST ON 6/3/11

VIDEO OF Q & A WITH PAT WEST AFTER HIS PRESENTATION

Enterprise Zones - Craig Johnson - May 6th 2011

Please Help us save the Enterprise Zones.  Read Craig's Letter on the subject and how you can help!  Click Here!

Craig Johnson currently serves as Special Projects Officer and Manager of the Long Beach Enterprise Zone (EZ).  He has been involved in the Enterprise Zone program since 2000 and prior to joining the City of Long Beach, served as EZ Manager for the county of Los Angeles.  

Mr. Johnson serves as President of the California Association of Enterprise Zones (CAEZ), the only statewide organization dedicated to representing the economic development interests of the 42 EZs in the state of California.

Mr. Johnson has spent the past 20 years in public service, including managing the largest technology Incubator in the State of California.  Prior to that, he spent five years as a lobbiest for First Interstate Bank of California and two years working for a member of Congress. 

Earlier this year the Governor put forth a proposal to cut funding to the Enterprise Zone program. Effectively ending the EZ program and the benifits they provide citys to bringing and growing business in these areas.  California is already has a reputation as less than friendly towards business.  Come and listen to Craig Johnson discuss what the loss of these EZs could mean to Long Beach, what is the current status of EZs politically in Sacramento and what can be done fight this.

I encourage you to Join us Friday May 6th for this informative meeting with a great speaker.

Signup for this Event now!

What benifits do Enterprise Zones provide.  (Exerpt from a Blog Article by Chris Barbieri)

"Enterprise zones (“EZ”) are state sanctioned geographic locations that provide economic incentives for companies to locate and grow within a “disadvantaged” area.  Basically, it’s an incentive to get companies to move into and expand in certain areas.  The companies bring revitalization and create jobs, and in return the state will give you tax breaks.  The EZs are planned out and administered by the city they occupy.  There are standard benefits they offer as well as additional city specific.

So what are the standard benefits you ask… you didn’t ask?; I’m sure you were about to so let me pontificate.

• $37,440 Hiring credit per “Qualified” Employee over 5 years:   If you hire a new employee and they meet ONE of the 14 Criteria (click here for a list of the criteria).  You can claim a $7,488 per year per qualified employee in tax credits for 5 years.  State taxes only, the federal government does not feel that employing people is worth a tax credit.

• 100% Sales Tax Credit for purchasing “Qualified” (there’s that word again) machinery, parts, & depreciable equipment.  This can be office equipment, computers, servers, etc., or manufacturing equipment.  There is a lot of nuance to this section, It is worth a call to a tax firm like, The CPA office of Shady, Shady & Questionable, LLP to see what you can get away with.

• 100% of Net Operating Losses for a business in the EZ can be carried forward for up to 15 years:  So if you are losing money hand over fist in this current economic recession, fell good that after you have sold the business at fire sale pricing, the new owner can take the tax loss in the future.  Hey, maybe there is a whole business opportunity of selling these business losses to the bourgeois capitalists out there.

• Upfront expensing of certain depreciable property.  As a business owner you can expense the whole value of some assets in the year purchased.  No waiting for 5 or 7 years to depreciate assets.  Again talk to your accountant about what qualifies, if they don’t know, what the heck are you paying them for?

• No state taxes on interest income for loans made on to business in the EZ.  While banks almost never pass the saving on to the business with lower loan rates.  Loans from family, friends, and private money become more attractive to the lender.  Yes, it is another advantage to present to your relatives to fleece them out of more of their money.

Some cities also try to sweeten the pot to get you to come to their city and become a stalwart upstanding source of revenue."

Online Marketing Panel Discussion - Friday April 1st 2011

The LBCREC Is excited to present a panel discussion on Online Marketing for the Commercial Real Estate industry.  Our panel is comprised of 3 experts in online marketing.  We strongly encourage you to come to this event.  More and more of our business is being impacted by the internet, come and find out what you can do to get your message and business infront of people that are searching for your services.

Christian Neeser:  

Expert In: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising.

Director SEO Agency

TSAVO   www.tsavo.com 

As Client Accounts Director at Tsavo, Christian Neeser was able to draw upon his years of SEO experience and client management and was responsible for overseeing project operations for all SEO campaigns. The combination of SEO knowledge combined with years of client management experience further led him to become a highly effective sales consultant at Tsavo.

In June 2009 Christian Neeser was promoted and assumed director status of the SEO/PPC agency side of the company. In this role he is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations including business development, team management and SEO strategy implementations while remaining hands on with a select list of SEO clients.

Julie Kreisler

Expert In: Marketing through Social Media

Principal

The Kreisler Group  www.kreislermediagroup.com

Kreisler started The Kreisler Group in 2006 inspired by this simple but powerful philosophy of customized service. 

TKG accommodates a growing list of corporate clients by offering full service creative and media advertising services for TV, radio, print, corporate, including public relations programs.  Most recently, TKG launched the TV, print and online campaign for the North America brand launch of Fisher & Paykel and DCS by Fisher & Paykel Appliances. 

ALLEN GREER - ECONOMIC FORCAST - FRIDAY MAR. 4TH 2011

Allen Greer will be speaking to us Friday morning.  Allen has spoken to the LBCREC may times and provides a educational and humorous update on the national, state and local economy and its effects on the local commercial real estate market.  

I encourage you to join us for this informative and enjoyable presentation on Friday Mar. 4th 2011. 

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER ONLINE

 

Mr. Allen Greer's Bio:

 

Everett (Allen) Greer is the managing member of Greer Advisors, LLC. He is a national authority on real estate valuation, risk assessment, real estate data/information systems and regulations for appraisal and real estate lending. Mr. Greer is a frequent speaker and instructor for many real estate events and organizations, including the Appraisal Institute, Risk Managers Association (RMA), CCIM, SIOR, Associated Industrial Realtors (A.I.R.), Society of CPAs, regional Bar Associations, various municipal planning agencies, commercial real estate boards and brokerage firms. He is often quoted in newspapers and journals. Mr. Greer’s lectures typically cover commercial real estate and the capital markets (i.e. CMBS & REITs), property valuation, automated valuation modeling, risk rating / indexing techniques, regulatory requirements for financial institutions related to commercial real estate lending / appraisal, and a variety of real estate topics.

During his career, Mr. Greer has been involved in nearly every aspect of commercial real estate, including land acquisition, construction / development, leasing / sale, lending and securitization.

Until January 2009, Mr. Greer was the Director of Research for the Real Estate Risk Assessment (RERA) division of Bank of America. His areas of responsibility included development and management of the bank’s Real Estate Research platform, including related web sites and SQL servers. The bank’s Real Estate Research platform provided associates throughout the globe with access to nearly all major real estate data vendors and other information / analytic resources for commercial real estate. In this role, Mr. Greer was often dubbed as “the person who spent more and knew more about commercial real estate data than anyone on the planet.” Mr. Greer was also the author of the bank’s Corporate Appraisal Policy, and managed the bank’s automated tax-based valuation platform, which valued 6,000-8,000 commercial properties per year. He served as project manager for the Countrywide acquisition, focusing on risk assessment, compliance metrics and best practices.

While with the bank, Mr. Greer published numerous market forecast reports, served on commercial real estate risk rating committees, created various ad hoc market forecast /portfolio analysis reports, and was the Chair of the Associate Focus Group for Bank of America’s Enterprise Credit & Market Risk.

Mr. Greer joined Bank of America in 1991, held a variety of management positions including Southwest US Regional Manager for the Commercial Appraisal Group, and was responsible for the bank’s real estate research from 2001-2009. Prior to joining Bank of America, Mr. Greer held management and senior positions in the real estate consulting divisions of PKF Consulting, Bank of California (i.e. U.S. division of Mitsubishi) and First Nationwide Bank. From 1978-1985, Mr. Greer also held management positions with two construction and development firms. Mr. Greer received both his Masters of Real Estate Development (MRED) and Bachelor of Science in Business from the University of Southern California. He holds an MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute, and serves on the Ethics and Counseling Panel and Experience Review Panel. He also holds the MRICS designation from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (based in London). He holds a general building contractor’s license, a real estate broker’s license, and is a member of the Society of Real Estate Research. He has held positions on the Leadership Steering Committee of United Way and with Habitat for Humanity. Mr. Greer has managed Little League Baseball teams since 2004, and currently serves as Treasurer on the Board with his local little league. He currently manages the AAA Yankees in Northwest Downey Little League (www.nwdll.org).

2nd & PCH Developers Discuss the Project - Jan 7th 2011

2nd & PCH, Long Beach Project

Hear about the exciting new project to be built at 2nd Street and Pacific Coast Hwy., Long Beach. This mixed use project is part retail, part upscale hotel, part upscale condos with restaurants and on-site parking.

Attend this important meeting to hear first hand from the developer and key players in this important gateway project to southeast coastal Long Beach.