HIGH PERFORMANCE ECONOMIC VITALITY The collective efforts of seven Action Teams
defined specific strategies and actions through which the Economic Vitality Vision will be
achieved. In addition to the identification of strategies, the Teams also Key to the success of the Strategic Plan is the continued involvement of stakeholders, the importance of which cannot be overstated. The value of the collective talent of the Action Teams, over $2.3 million, is detailed in the Services Budget Assessment in the Supplemental Information section. Projected return on member cities' investment in SAMCEDA will be even greater in terms of the final results over the next three years. By making the Action Teams a permanent part of the Countywide economic vitality effort, a continued broadly based perspective can be assured. Continuity from previous efforts win be also assured, such as the evolution from a 1994 committee of planning directors from Daly City, Belmont, San Carlos, San Mateo and the Board of Realtors into the standardization of building codes and public access to Assessor's parcel records. As stated at the outset, the operative goal of this Strategic Plan is "Economic Vitality" and includes Quality of Life as well as the more traditional Economic Development & Opportunities issues. The diversity of membership on the Action Teams ensures that this broad perspective will prevail throughout San Mateo County in the future. Thus, "our Vision to ensure the Economic Vitality of San Mateo County by building on its diversity and strength as a global competitor" becomes a reality. According to the National Council for Urban Economic Development, Commentary, Volume 19, Number 1, Spring, 1995; "The rise of a new system of high-performance business is fundamentally transforming economic development as it was previously known. High performance businesses harness the knowledge and intelligence of all workers from the R&D laboratory to the factory floor through the use of self-managing teams, continuous improvement and quality efforts, and joint efforts at innovation between end-users and their suppliers. High-performance economic development must move away from the current emphasis on providing direct assistance to individual firms, and toward creating a total economic environment which can support high-performance firms and provide incentives for others to adopt high-performance techniques." The seven Action Teams addressed the Economic Vitality Blueprint Vision by identifying a number of strategies, many of them inter-related, focusing on four primary areas: Advocacy, Communications, Resource Enhancement and Results. All of this in preparation for a growing workforce.
RESULTS AND MEASUREMENT CONSIDERATIONS Effective measurement of both Economic Opportunity and Quality of Life is of significant importance in this Strategic Action Plan. Given that this Plan is a multi-year working tool, it is important to provide periodic assessments of effectiveness as well as flexibility in implementation. The identification of primary measurement components is dependent on that which is being measured. Quality of Life, as an example, has different measurement components than Economic Opportunities, yet neither is mutually exclusive of the other. Meaningful measurements are further influenced by the ability to assign quantifiable values to each component as well as define actual results attributable to the Strategic Action Plan. An integral part of the 1996-99 Strategic Action Plan is a two-tiered measurement process:
It must all add up to JOBS! |
prepared
Action Plans to detail implementation steps. 