Comment Log Display

March 14, 2016
Mary D. Nichols
Chair, California Air Resources Board
Chairman’s Office
P.O. Box 2815
Sacramento, CA 95812

RE: Proposed Relocation of the Southern California ARB Facility -
SUPPORT

Dear Chairwoman Nichols:
On behalf of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, representing
over 1,650 member organizations, I am writing to express our
support for the site recommendation, relocating the ARB. As the
voice of business, the Chamber promotes collaboration and business
development in the region in order to build greater economic
prosperity and quality of life for all Los Angeles residents. Given
our mission, I was pleased to read the California Air Resources
Board’s (ARB) recent report “Analysis of Sites for the Southern
California Relocation Project,” which recommends relocation of the
ARB’s El Monte facilities to the campus of California State
Polytechnic University, Pomona.

The Chamber knows that retaining talented staff is key to
organizational success, and we commend the ARB for commissioning
this report to assess how relocation would impact current
employees. As the staff report found, employees strongly favor the
Cal Poly Pomona site, with “approximately 85% of the respondents
prefer[ing] the Pomona site” over alternative options. The staff
report specifies that moving the facility to Riverside County would
“likely involve relocation, resignation, or retirement of ARB
employees,” given the sharp differences in driving and public
transit commutes. By comparison, maintaining the facility in Los
Angeles County would “likely retain more of ARB’s existing and
highly trained workforce [who are] necessary to support ARB’s
ability to carry out its responsibilities” and “would be much less
disruptive to ARB’s operations.” 

Further, the staff report also concluded that moving the facility
to Pomona would “allow ARB to select from a larger candidate pool
because of its proximity to the Los Angeles area.” We understand
the importance of the work that ARB does and believe that retaining
the facility in Los Angeles County will be optimal for the ARB by
helping to attract and retain talented staff.

The Los Angeles region also stands to benefit from maintaining the
southern California facility in Los Angeles County, as the ARB
functions as a key employer in our local economy. We cannot afford
to lose approximately 400 jobs to our neighbors in Riverside
County. Those high-skilled, high-paying jobs—and the economic
development components that accompany these jobs, such as employee
housing, retail, spousal jobs, etc.—should remain in Los Angeles.

Furthermore, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce is committed
to promoting education and workforce development opportunities that
will prepare our young people for 21st century jobs. We are pleased
to see that Cal Poly Pomona and the CSU System are eager to
collaborate with ARB, and have proposed to develop new
state-of-the-art facilities on their campus property. This campus
co-location will not only retain hundreds of jobs in our County,
but will offer additional educational benefits and training
opportunities for Cal Poly students and faculty, as well as for our
local community. As the only polytechnic university in southern
California, Cal Poly Pomona is uniquely positioned to prepare
students for critically-needed scientific and professional careers
through its superior teaching, scholarly activity, and high-quality
academic programs and experiential learning opportunities. In
addition, Cal Poly Pomona’s status as a federally defined
Hispanic-Serving Institute (HSI) enables it to meet our current and
projected workforce needs with diverse and highly-skilled job
candidates. The Chamber greatly supports how co-location of the ARB
facility on the Cal Poly Pomona campus will create collaborative
educational and training opportunities that will have a positive
impact on our entire community.

For these reasons, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce
strongly encourages ARB to adopt the staff report’s recommendation
to relocate the El Monte facility to the Cal Poly Pomona campus.
This move makes economic and operational sense from multiple
angles, is consistent with the will of your employees, and creates
additional educational and training opportunities for our future
workforce. I look forward to hearing the results of the March 17th
Board meeting and sincerely hope I will soon have the opportunity
to announce to business community that ARB will be remaining in Los
Angeles County. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Gary Toebben
President & CEO