She personally contacted Elon Musk, President of Tesla to ask him what the City of Long Beach was doing to encourage his company to locate there. She also mounted a letter writing campaign called "Long Beach -- We Can Do Better Than Downey."
She used her blog to prod Long Beach officials to actively market the City to get Tesla here. So today upon learning that Tesla has signed a letter of intent with Downey to locate a plant which will manufacture 20,000 electric vehicles and produce 1,000 jobs she issued the following statement:
"The taxpayers of Long Beach deserve a full explanation about who or what killed the deal to bring Tesla to Long Beach. How did we lose this revenue producing opportunity to Downey? Long Beach has so much more to offer to a business than most southern California locations -- we have manufacturing space at the Boeing site, nearness to freeways, an airport, a port, railroad, convention center, training programs at our local community college and most importantly a workforce ready and willing to work. We also have an enterprise zone that provides tax credits for employers. And just recently the City announced it won the 'Most Business Friendly City Award' in Los Angeles County.
So what went wrong?
Anyone who has worked in corporate America knows how important it is to develop positive relationships in order to do business, which is exactly what the City of Downey did and the City of Long Beach did not do.
Unlike the City of Downey, which marshaled its Mayor and Council to actively court Tesla through calls, letters, ads and personal outreach, Long Beach apparently treated Tesla as a 'second-class citizen' according to comments made to me and to the press by Tesla President, Elon Musk. (It would be interesting to examine how much time and effort was really expended by Long Beach officials and staff in recruiting Tesla.)
I would like to congratulate the City of Downey for getting Tesla, and thank them for helping to keep these important types of jobs in the region."
