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Recommendation to request City Manager to assemble a "Checkered Flag Team" comprised of City officials and staff, Los Angeles County economic development officials, local utility companies and business leaders to develop a strategy and identify all available benefits and opportunities to attract the automotive manufacturing businesses affiliated with the Long Beach Grand Prix Association to move to Long Beach and create an automotive racing business zone.
DISCUSSION
The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach is the number one street race in America and is one of Long Beach's most successful and signature annual events. This year was one of the race's most successful weekends ever, including drawing record crowds on the Friday event.
The Long Beach Grand Prix Association has a number of affiliated automotive manufacturing businesses currently located in other parts of the country. The City has a unique opportunity now to create an automotive racing business zone to consolidate the location of these businesses and provide hundreds of new high-paying manufacturing jobs for the community.
The City of Long Beach has previously implemented a "Red Team" strategy successfully to retain the Boeing C-17 program in Long Beach, which provides thousands of high paying jobs in the city.
The team included representatives from City departments, county and state agencies, business leaders, utility companies and Boeing executives. The team explored everything from tax incentives and abatements to fee deferrals or reductions.
A similar approach should now be employed to pursue an opportunity to attract to Long Beach these automotive manufacturing businesses.
We propose that we establish a "Checkered Flag Team" comprised of City officials and staff, Los Angeles County economic development officials, local utility companies and business leaders to develop a strategy and make a concerted effort to identify all available benefits and opportunities to create an automotive racing bu...
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