SAN DIEGO – City Councilmember Carl DeMaio took part in the groundbreaking of a new 248,882 square foot regional FBI field office. The new field office will house over 500 agents and staff that will bring increased Law Enforcement resources to San Diego communities.

DeMaio’s office played a key role in resolving development disputes that threatened to derail the project – and cost San Diego much-needed construction jobs.

“After working hard to get this facility in San Diego, I am proud we are able to get construction underway. This building will provide local San Diego Law Enforcement with the facilities they need to better protect residents,” noted DeMaio.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Keith Slotter commented, "The men and women of the FBI are looking forward to moving into our new building. It has been designed to provide us with the infrastructure and space needed to support the FBI's intelligence and investigative mission. We are currently located in six leased facilities in San Diego which are incapable of supporting new functions and do not meet enhanced IT and security requirements. This new building will consolidate our resources to facilitate both an efficient working environment and provide us with state of the art capabilities needed to meet the needs of the FBI's intelligence and law enforcement activities."

“We are proud to work with the GSA and FBI to create a place for the men and women who work and serve in law enforcement and intelligence to do their jobs in the most effective manner possible,” states Richard Worthington, president of The Molasky Group of Companies. “Additionally, we are very excited to be part of the San Diego business community with the new FBI Divisional Offices. This is an opportunity to spark an economic engine that creates jobs, brings new business to local vendors and suppliers, and initiates new tax revenues for the city and state, at a time it is most needed."

This past week I released my "Pathway to Prosperity" -- a comprehensive plan to promote job creation in San Diego.

San Diego’s families and business owners are facing a bad economy and its only getting worse. Even more tragic is a city government that just doesn’t seem to care.

Usually city government spends its time putting up roadblocks and hurdles to job creation, rather than cutting red tape and helping to find ways to attract and grow businesses in San Diego.

That’s why I am proud to announce seven major reforms and proposals to encourage job growth in our city, as well as the creation of a fifteen-member Jobs Task Force made up of local business leaders. I will be developing these initial proposals, as well as developing additional reforms through input from the Task Force, a series of Town Hall Forums, and the launch of a Job Creation Hotline at (619) 236-6210 to hear exactly what kinds of problems business owners are having with the City and their ideas to solve them.

In business, time is money – and uncertainty can create so much risk that businesses decide not to pursue projects. That’s why the City of San Diego must dramatically reorganize and overhaul its entire process for handling permits to become “faster, better and cheaper.”

By streamlining regulations and “cycle time” for permit decisions, the City can remove cost and risk from projects – and in doing so position itself as an attractive place to do business.

To achieve this goal, I am proposing the following:

--Fixed Price Fee Structure: Instead of drawing down on “deposit accounts” which only encourages the city bureaucracy to take more time on permit processing, the Development Services department should switch to “fixed-price” permit pricing.

--Time and Quality Guarantees: For each permit category, the City will commit to a hard deadline by which the permit will be completely processed. If the City fails to meet the performance standards promised, the customer (applicant) will receive their money back, and the City will pay to put an extra project team on the permit application to expedite processing.

--Self-Certification Program: To streamline the number of permit actions that require a full-scale city review process, I propose “Self-Certification” Permitting for select projects, with liability transferred to entities that certify compliance with city codes.

--Employee Incentive Program: To encourage city employees to meet turn-around times, an incentive program will fund performance bonuses and training in key skill sets such as project management, customer service, etc.

--“Innovation Labs” for Process Redesign: Instead of trying to overhaul the entire DSD department as a whole all at once, I would like to see DSD broken down into four units: The existing City team, the CCDC team, and two outside contract teams. By having four units working separately over a 2-year trial, the goal is to encourage competition and innovation in process design and management. At the end of the two-year “Innovation Lab” period, results will be assessed and a final DSD structure will be implemented based on best practices from all four units.

What are your ideas for job creation? Call my Jobs Hotline or email me now!

We had an amazing kickoff event for my campaign for Mayor! I was so grateful that we had over 200 people come out to show their support.

The day was made all the more special for me to have my sister and brother on hand. They both mean the world to me, and we stuck together through some pretty tough times. I couldn't think of a better person to introduce me at the event! Thanks sis!

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Good afternoon. I want to thank everyone for coming today for this important announcement from Carl DeMaio.

Many San Diegans know Carl as the Taxpayer Watchdog who works hard to fix the city’s financial problems.

But I know Carl in a different way. To me, he’s just my brother.

I’m Susan DeMaio-Mills.

I wanted to be here today to share with you a side of Carl that most of you do not know about.

Carl knows about challenges – and more importantly, how to overcome every challenge he’s ever faced.
Like many families, money was always tight for us.

But our entire family structure crumbled while our mother had to battle cancer for six years.

We were separated as children when our mother died two weeks after our father moved out.

At age 14, Carl was placed at a Jesuit boarding school where he was fortunate to be given an opportunity to earn his way into Georgetown University.

Carl arrived at Georgetown with $36 in his pocket.

Carl worked two jobs during college to pay the tuition. He also completed Georgetown a year early to save money.

Against all odds, and with no financing, at 24 Carl started a company and before 30, he started a second one. He grew both of them to multi-million dollar firms.

If I know one thing about Carl, he will never stop working to fix San Diego’s problems – no matter how big a challenge it may be.

And no challenge is too big for Carl – he’ll find some way to overcome it, no matter what.

I am so happy to be here today as Carl tells us how he intends to finish the challenge he took on four years ago when he left the business world and ran for City Council.

I give you my brother, and your Taxpayer Watchdog, Carl DeMaio!

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