A Message from Chamber CEO Douglass Wilhoit:
Hard work has paid off in guide toward a better future for city

JANUARY 2008 - A very Happy New Year 2008 to all of you from all of us here at your Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce! We hope that your Christmas and Holiday Season was joyous and full of family and friends. It is a very special time of the year but wouldn’t it be wonderful if we kept the Christmas spirit 365 days a year, and worked together to make a better community for all of us here now and into the future.

On that note I must share with you that as someone who has been working for 40 years in the government and now the private sector, I cannot compliment enough the City of Stockton Community Development Staff, the General Plan consultants, the City of Stockton Planning Commission, the citizens WHO TOOK THE TIME TO COME FORWARD TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PROCESS AND VOICE THEIR OPINIONS, and finally to the members of the Stockton City Council who did their sworn duty well.

During my 16 years on the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors, I sat through many General Plan hearings and General Plan updates and I can say without hesitation what all those mentioned above did over the last five years is a great example of hard, dedicated, honest and thorough work providing a General Plan that they can be proud of and other communities can use as an example of the right way to do it.

Of course there is a small group who from the beginning wanted their own way, and threatened to sue from the start, and when it was said and done cried foul.

The only foul thing I can see is their unwillingness to be honest enough to admit that a General Plan is just that, General, and not a specific plan anchored in cement. It is a fluid, living and changing document that will be reviewed and tweaked at least four (4) times a year. It is a great start looking out into the future.

There were some folks who said the Council should have taken more time, COME ON PEOPLE, five years and hundreds of hours of hard work, staff and committee meetings, Planning Commission meetings and hearings, and public input to the council (much of which were the same people at all the other hearings). The role of the council is purely administrative and they filled that role well.

They read the reports, listened to citizens, discussed the issue thoroughly and then made a decision that as I said above will be continually reviewed and improved upon where necessary. What good does it do a city to have “paralysis by analysis” when it is known that no matter what the council does the “negatrons” are going to waste taxpayers dollars by suing because they did not get “their way” ? It makes for good headlines but not good community planning.

The Council, nor anyone for that matter, has a crystal ball but we at the Chamber support the hard work of all the HONEST and FAIR people involved and say thank you for all the hard work and we will work with you to make sure your work was not done in vain. We also hope that the others become full citizens of this community and not just live in their small corner of the world or their minds.

You all saw in The Record the good story of the opening of the Sheraton at Regent Pointe on Thursday Dec. 13, 2007. It is just another jewel in the crown of Stockton. Many thanks to those who had the faith to make this a reality: the City Councils under Mayor’s Joan Darrah, Gary Podesto and Ed Chavez, John Thomas and Jeroen Gerrese and all their staff at Regent Development, the tradesmen and women who built it, the friendly staff in place now and all of you citizens who are keeping the faith. It is so exciting watching the progression of the waterfront with so much more to come.

On that same evening I attended another dinner after I left the Sheraton and someone in attendance asked what is happening with Paraguary’s and I asked this person if they had been downtown to see the signage on the windows, “Paraguary’s opening Spring of 2008 & Now Hiring”, when the answer was no I suggested that this person and others in attendance should take the time to frequent downtown and they may learn something and really see what is going on.

I must take my hat off to Kathy Miller and her crew for the hard and honest work they do to bring people downtown and it is up to all of you to be part of the ongoing success.

As I have reported before in this column the investment in downtown is bringing more and more private money to other areas of Stockton. Just drive around and take a look; BJ’S, The Elephant Bar, the whole Stone Creek Center, Park West Place, the Miracle Mile, Charter Way-Martin Luther King corridor, the Airport Way Corridor and the neighborhoods being improved by Mayor Chavez’s Strong Neighborhood Initiative. There is so much going on and more to come!

Even though we are in a periodic real estate slump I feel, as do many others that this is just a bump in the road and the General Plan has positioned Stockton to be in the right place at the right time when the ship is righted. Hold on my friends, for it is going to be a wonderful, exciting and successful ride into the future of this great community. Be on the ride and don’t just watch from the sidelines but be part of the success sure to come.

I also want to take this opportunity from myself, Chamber Presidents (past and present), the Chamber Board (past and present), chamber staff (past and present) and all our members over the last 23 years to say a BIG THANK YOU to Mary Pennini who retired from the Chamber on Dec. 1.

Mary has been a cornerstone of your Chamber for 23 years and loved by all who knew and worked with her.  She totally dedicated her professional and personal life to this Chamber and the betterment of the business community and community as a whole.

A great many of us have and should use Mary as a role model as to how a member of an organization and community should live their lives on a daily basis.

Our collective love, prayers and heartfelt thanks go to Mary and Larry and we all let them know that they are forever part of the Chamber family.

Again and Happy New Year 2008.