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Meeting the Governator
By Doug Carpenter
On Friday, March 11th I was
invited by the Long Beach Chamber
of Commerce to participate in a
private meeting with Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold was
coming to Long Beach to meet with
his first “Citizens Kitchen Cabinet”.
The governor wanted to begin
creating a network of community
advisors to give him input on local
issues throughout the state. He
picked Long Beach as the launch
pad for this new strategy. In
addition to myself there was an
educator, nurse, minority business
person, woman-owned business
owner, at-home businessman, and a
stay-at-home mom in attendance.
We met at a local residence in Long
Beach and were instructed not to ask
any “softball” questions that concerned us regarding California.
Arnold entered the house with a
larger-than-life smile and a hand
extended for a handshake with
anyone within his reach. He
greeted each of us individually
spending time to learn our name
and business affiliation. His
people-skills and charisma was so
huge with absolutely no air of
pretentiousness.
The questions began regarding
his proposal to change teacher’s pay
to performance instead of tenure. He was also challenged on his
desire to change pension payments
for nurses, police officers and
firemen. He answered all of the
questions thoughtfully and directly
many times asking clarifying
questions to better understand the
issue. My question was in relation
to the business migration out of
California. We have seen an
incredible exodus of manufacturing
companies out of the state over the
past 25 years. Arnold’s election
campaign was run on a businessfriendly
platform but I was
concerned what was really
happening to keep and bring businesses to the state. He stated
that he was working on this issue
from many different avenues
including tax breaks, wage
subsidies and directly targeted
solicitations of selected businesses
to move into California.
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He said
that his worker’s compensation
reform was still moving forward
and that his targeted decreases in
workers compensation rates
should be fully in effect by July
2006. He also stated that the
increasing real estate values in the
state were creating huge barriers to-
entry for companies
considering large facilities in
California. Much cheaper land
prices in neighboring states are
making it difficult to justify
purchasing or building large
facilities in California. Many of
the barriers to manufacturing in
California go back for several
decades and they are not an easy
fix.
Someone asked Schwarzenegger
why he chose to run for governor
and take on these uphill battles
in the state. He passionately
discussed all that the people of California have done for him
since he emigrated here from
Austria. He spoke of the great
opportunity given to him and
about his desire to give back to
this country. This was a great
opportunity to get a sense of his
vision and passion for the State
of California.
Whether you agree with
Arnold’s policies or not, his
intelligence, charisma &
leadership abilities are
unparalleled. I believe that the
street-smarts that he has acquired
over the years uniquely qualify
him to bring together opposing
viewpoints to move ahead for
change in the state. After
shaking hands and thanking his
hosts, Schwarzenegger walked to
his heavily guarded car and
declared his first Kitchen Cabinet
meeting a success. "It was
unbelievable," he told reporters.
"I learned a lot from my new
Kitchen Cabinet, and it was a
wonderful thing. It's great to be
out here with the people." |
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Building to the Sky
By Doug Carpenter
We have always been fascinated by
tall buildings. Egypt’s Great
Pyramid of Giza was the tallest
structure in the world for 43
centuries. Then the Eiffel Tower
was built in 1889. At 1,450 feet,
Chicago’s Sears Tower was the
world’s tallest building from 1973
to 1996. Today, the tallest
building is located in Taiwan
(Taipei 101) which has 101 floors
and reaches 1,670 feet. Toronto’s
CN Tower claims to reach 108
feet higher than the Taipei 101
thanks to its antenna.
All of these will be dwarfed by
the tallest building now being
built in Dubai, the United Arab
Emirates. The pilings are now in
place and dig 160 feet into the
earth. When it is finished, visitors
will swoon over this city from 123
stories high, or more. The Burj
Dubai will be dozens of stories
higher than the current tallest
structure. It is scheduled to be
completed in 2008 at a cost of
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$900 million.
The craze for height has hit
hardest in industrializing Asian
countries like Taiwan, Hong Kong
and China which boasts seven of
the 10 tallest buildings. It is
strange to me that in the area
most susceptible for earthquakes
that the tallest buildings should
exist. The Persian Gulf city of
Dubai is proud to bring the title
of “tallest building” back to the
Middle East (home of the ancient
Pyramids). The building shall
have a concrete core that could
withstand a 911 type jet airliner
attack. A hotel will occupy the
lower 37 floors. Floors 45 through
108 will have 700 apartments,
most of which have already been
pre-sold. Corporate office and
suites will fill most of the rest,
except for a 123rd floor lobby and
an observation deck with an
outdoor terrace for the brave.
Unfortunately, Paragon Steel was not
awarded the contract to build it. |
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