A retired local CEO and a UC Santa Cruz official both tell the Santa Cruz Sentinel today that California's "Surf City" north needs to beat back a legitimate perception among potential developers that the community's future economic viability is threatened is hamstrung by political correctness and anti-growth sentiments.

The loss of key divisions from Rainmaker Systems Inc., Borland, Tarantella and Raytek may owe something, says former Raytek Chief Executive Officer Cliff Warren, to a growing perception that Santa Cruz is more trouble than it’s worth. In order to reverse this trend, says Warren, who now works as a business consultant for the city of Santa Cruz, "We need to get past this attitude that Santa Cruz is a kind of anti-business place. That’s the reputation it has," he says, "and perception is reality."

Gerald Barnett, who directs the UC Santa Cruz Office for the Management of Intellectual Property, says the thumbs down in spring on the Coast Santa Cruz Hotel’s bid for a new hotel and conference center sent a message to current and potential investors that residents may live to regret.

"Here, you had a developer who appeared to be doing things to show that he was willing to work with the community, and yet that wasn’t enough," he says. "Maybe people got the message. They figured, ‘Why fight this community?’ " It is a message, Barnett says, Santa Cruz can ill afford.

...Warren says developers associate Santa Cruz with unrealistic demands. Companies that want to do business here, he says, "not only have to be environmentally clean but politically correct and socially responsible. Suppose we get a clean, nonpolluting company that’s making military hardware. Are we going to be judgmental about that company?" he says. And the ubiquitous chorus of Santa Cruz naysayers, Warren says, have a vast repertoire. "High-tech industries are global," he says, "and there are forces in Santa Cruz city and county who are not in favor of anything global."

If a Chinese company were to express interest in coming here, he says, there likely would be an outcry about slave labor practices in China. Another foreign country, which, by nature of its culture may not have women in high management positions, also would be likely to meet with opposition.

"Are we going to put people through the third degree before they even get here?" he says, "Who wants to go through that?"

Barnett says the community wrongly perceives itself as progressive. "Santa Cruz is a very conservative place," he says. "It’s just that the values it conserves are from the late ’60s instead of from the ’30s. We need to be willing to go out and dance a bit," Barnett says. "So, c’mon. Let’s get on with it."

Barnett's pointed diagnosis is accurate. Santa Cruz's local electeds have squandered political capital time and again on symbolic effluvia while letting infrastructure deteriorate, and failing to enforce basic civil order downtown. Voters are stuck in the 60s too, choosing a "millionaire tax" to fund expanded mental health services. Now, the range-free chickens are coming home to roost: it's encouraging the city council has hired a consultant like ex-CEO Warren to speak truth to power, and that a straight shooter like UC Santa Cruz's Barnett is given ample space to sound off in the local paper.

But whether anything changes or not depends a lot on diversifying the local candidate pool, over time. Here's a slogan offered free of charge for some brave, pro-development City Council slate in Santa Cruz's future: "Think Locally, Act Locally." One more: "Alter The Dominant Paradigm."

TECHNORATI TAGS: SANTA CRUZ, ANTI-GROWTH, PROGRESSIVES

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Posted by Matt Rosenberg at September 20, 2005 04:08 PM