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Chairman's Message

REDWOOD CITY, CA - February 2, 2005 ­ The Chamber of Commerce has been working closely with the City of Redwood City on planning for future economic development in our community.  Last year the Chamber's Economic Development Committee formed a task force to work with the City on 1) Updating the economic element of the General Plan, and; 2) Updating the economic development strategy for the City.  Redwood City is currently engaged in the process of updating its General Plan.  The City's Planning Department sought input from the business community, through the Chamber, on the economic element of the General Plan.  The purpose of adopting an economic element is to maintain and enhance the economic character of the community while providing for fiscal stability for the City.  Working with Planning Department staff, the Chamber's task force developed a vision statement and broad policies for economic development to be included in the General Plan.  These will be augmented by Redwood City demographic and economic profile data and eventually will be presented to the Planning Commission as part of the draft Citywide General Plan.  The Chamber and its members provided valuable input from the business community in formulating this important element of the General Plan.


Having accomplished the first objective, the task force is now working on the second one, which is to update the economic development strategy for the City.  Several years ago the Chamber of Commerce and the City's Economic Development staff put together the City's first economic development strategy.  The purpose was to recommend economic development programs and actions for the City to attract, retain, and encourage expansion of businesses.  It is now time to update this strategy and the task force will begin its work in February.

If you are interested in joining the task force in monthly meetings to assist the City of Redwood City develop a strategy for attraction, retention, and expansion of business and economic activity in the City, the meetings will be held on the first Tuesday of the month at 1:00 PM in the Chamber of Commerce office.  The task force meetings will immediately follow the regular meetings of the Economic Development Committee.  These are challenging times to plan an economic development strategy and we look forward to Chamber members working with the City to meet this challenge.

Another challenge for the Chamber of Commerce is the upcoming annual Membership Drive, which will be held during the week of March 7-10, 2005.  The theme for this year's membership drive is "Clash of the Titans".  Greek gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines will compete on five teams to recruit the most new members to the Chamber.  Our goal this year is to add 200 new members to the Redwood City-San Mateo County Chamber of Commerce, which is already the third largest Chamber in the Bay Area.  One of the best sources for new members is recommendations from existing members.  We welcome and encourage all existing members to recommend joining the Chamber to your fellow businesses between now and the end of the Membership Drive on March 10, 2005.  Please join all of the team members from the "Clash of the Titans" at a victory party to be held on Thursday, March 10 from 5-7 PM at the Pacific Athletic Club.  Good luck to all of the Titans and may the mightiest team prevail!

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