Our tax dollars must be used to support our neighborhoods, businesses and local jobs, not block the way to progress with unnecessary red tape. Here is an example. You may have noticed the restrooms on one of our local beaches have been closed for moe than two years, replaced with unsightly portable toilets on the sand. Why has it taken the city so long to fix a facility used by countless residents and tourists visiting Ocean Beach? It\u2019s not due to budget cuts, environmental regulations or neighborhood controversy. It\u2019s because the city\u2019s contracting department stumbled through three construction bidding rounds \u2014 once rejecting a bid because it was not properly submitted in a three-ring binder. I\u2019ve been a leader in the campaign to bring “regulatory relief” to City Hall. The Ocean Beach [Brighton Street] restroom project illustrates what happens when red tape gets in the way: regulations overrule common sense, jobs are put on hold \u2014 and San Diegans\u2019 time is wasted. My goal is for businesses to spend less time navigating city bureaucracy so they can focus on running a successful business, strengthening our local economy and hiring more San Diegans. I promoted a recent regulatory relief workshop around the question, “How can City Hall help a business create a job?” Dozens shared red-tape horror stories and recommendations to improve city customer service, including: \u2022 eliminating annual permits for home businesses; \u2022 creating a “starter kit” for new businesses and contract bidders; \u2022 clarifying regulations to avoid different interpretations by different bureaucrats; and \u2022 expanding online permitting. The workshop is just the beginning. I will be releasing an action plan to reform the most burdensome city business regulations that are needlessly hurting San Diego\u2019s economic recovery \u2014 and the jobs that come with it. So what about the Ocean Beach restrooms? A local construction company was ultimately selected and the restrooms are scheduled to open in time for the summer. As for the city contracting department, I asked for a full performance audit of their operations and there is currently an opportunity for new management at the department. What regulatory relief do you need to succeed? Tell me on the Regulatory Relief San Diego Facebook page, @RegReliefSD on Twitter or at kevinfaulconer@sandiego.gov. \u2014 Kevin Faulconer represents District 2 of the San Diego City Council, which includes Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, Point Loma and downtown San Diego.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our tax dollars must be used to support our neighborhoods, businesses and local jobs, not block the way to progress with unnecessary red tape. Here is an example. You may have noticed the restrooms on one of our local beaches have been closed for moe than two years, replaced with unsightly portable toilets on the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":267232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Council Corner: Tax dollars should help grow jobs, not red tape","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11552],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}