San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed wants city to move faster to help companies to start and grow
San Jose is the largest city in North California – the State’s third largest – and also the self-proclaimed “Capital of Silicon Valley”. When asked about this envious but unofficial title, the Mayor of San Jose was anything but apologetic.
“It’s also the tenth largest city in the U.S.
It’s the seat of government in Silicon Valley and the home of more companies and more technology workers than in any other city in Silicon Valley,” said San Jose Mayor, Chuck Reed in a conversation earlier this month.
Helping startups is top priority for San Jose Mayor Reed
In order to attract greetech startups to San Jose and boost its image of an entrepreneur-friendly city, Mayor Reed announced that san Jose will give away free rent and services for a whole year to 6 young companies.
And that’s inspite the current financial crisis that forced city officials to project a $59 million deficit for San Jose next year – nearly 7 percent of the city’s expected $901 million expenses – and making layoffs virtually certain.
“We can’t afford not to. Growing San Jose businesses is critical to our future economic health. Silicon Valley has led wave after wave of innovation by being bold and taking advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves; this is another of those times.
The most important factor in attracting and growing businesses isn’t subsidies. It’s San Jose’s ability to work at the speed of business. We deliver results and facilitate projects at the speed innovative businesses like Nanosolar and Tesla need.
We also have the ability to tap outside resources, from state programs to energy efficiency rebates from our utility companies, rather than solely relying on incentives. Most of San Jose’s incentives come from our Redevelopment Agency’s tax increment financing rather than the City’s operating budget. This is a creative tool that local governments have to foster economic development and eliminate blight,” added Mayor Reed.
For Mayor Reed, this strategy is already successful – pointing to the city’s incubators programs which participating companies have collectively raised more than a billion dollars and created thousands of jobs for the area.
Silicon Valley is still unique place in the world for startups
Another way San Jose can help its young companies to succeed is to partner and buy some of these early technologies.
“We’re going to try to deploy some of these technology ourselves take some risks to help those companies demonstrate that their products are commercially viable
Like our partnership with Campbell, Calif., company Coulomb Technologies that is building charging stations for electric vehicles, located on streetlights, curbside and parking lots,” confided Reed.
But for the Mayor of San Jose, this is first and foremost, Silicon Valley, a unique place in the world, “where you can get access to people, capital and all the resources you needto start a company and grow it rapidly.”
