Governor's Remarks at Bakersfield Business Women Roundtable

Governor's Remarks at Bakersfield Business Women Roundtable

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:

Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, let me just thank you, Vicky, for your wonderful tour that you gave me of your operation here. It's very impressive when you walk around this facility here and see the kind of the great work that is going on, and all the different things that are being done from the different departments, of selling and creating the products, to installing it, and fixing it when it's broken and all of those things. So I'm really impressed. You've been here now for 18 months in this facility, and it just shows you that if someone is willing to work hard and is creative and also has the guts to do it -- because that's what it takes in business, to run a business and to own a business. And I myself have been involved in business for many, many years. I always loved business, so that's why I always feel like the key thing is that we take care of our businesses.

So for me it's wonderful to be in Bakersfield here and also to be with my Secretary Bradshaw here, who has been terrific ever since I came into office. As a matter of fact, she helped me campaign up and down the state when I ran for governor. She had a lot of faith in me even though we didn't know each other at all. But she felt that I have the right qualifications to be the governor, so we have been working really well together and helping businesses in California.

But before we get going, I thought it would be good if maybe each of you can introduce yourself so that we get to know a little bit about your background and what business you're in, and then we can move forward. And I'm sure Vicky has also a few things to say. So please, let's start right over here.

PANEL: My name is Monique Panke (PH) and my husband and I own Key Cold Storage. Actually we have farming operations as well as cold storage. We cool produce for other growers, mostly.

PANEL: My name is Shannon Smith, and my sister-in-law and I own Continental Labor Resources, which is a staffing company that services about 620 clients throughout California.

GOVERNOR: Good. Thank you.
PANEL: My name is Pat Griffin. I have Griffin Communications; it's an advertising, design, and public relations firm.

GOVERNOR: Nice to have you. Yes?

PANEL: I'm Jane Zachary, I'm a single working mom with a public relations firm. I have a sister and brother-in-law who own a popular local restaurant, and a sister and brother-in-law who have a beekeeping business, so my family is all about small business. And we want to deeply thank you for your work on reducing Worker's Compensation rates.

GOVERNOR: Thank you.

PANEL: We are profoundly grateful. (Applause)

GOVERNOR: Thank you. Yes?

PANEL: Thanks for having us, Governor. I'm Connie Brunnie (PH) from All American Executive Financial Services. Big name, very small company. I am primarily a loan document signing service, and I help my husband in a recycling business in reclaiming gypsum from drywall. And so we just got that started two years ago. Happy to be here. Thank you.

GOVERNOR: Well, it's great to have you here. Thank you.

PANEL: I'm Holly Coheney (PH) (IA) Associates. We're an HR consulting business, specifically designed to work with a small or medium sized business owner dealing with labor law and labor issues and those types of related services for that size employer.

GOVERNOR: Yes, please?

PANEL: Maurine Napier (PH). I own Knight's Pumping and Portable Services. We provide services to construction companies, portable toilets, temporary fencing, and we also do large pumping jobs, waste, environmental waste.

GOVERNOR: M-hmm. Thank you.
PANEL: I'm Pat Ferris (PH) I come from the other side of the mountain, from Ridgecrest where we have (IA) where America comes for defense. We publish a local weekly newspaper, and we appreciate this opportunity to be with you today.

GOVERNOR: Thank you.

PANEL: I'm Debby Hereno (PH). I don't own my own business. I lead an organization of 1,600 businesses for the Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce. About 80 percent of them would be classified as small businesses.
PANEL: Sheryl Barbidge. I own Barbidge Consulting; we do strategic planning facilitation. I'm the Chairman of her board, currently, and President of Bakersfield Vision 20/20.

GOVERNOR: Very nice. Vicky, do you want to say a few words?

BRADSHAW: I'd love to say a few words. First of all, it's an absolute thrill to be here. I grew up in a woman-owned small business, and it was a restaurant, so that was (IA). So I clearly understand those issues. And I spent a lot of time in the Central Valley, all the way from Kern County all the way up. In fact, I was here three weeks ago, because as you know, the Governor, one of his major priorities is the San Joaquin Valley Partnership, so all of his cabinet spends a lot of time in the greater San Joaquin Valley.
And one of the most unique is this area. I don't think everybody understands the potential here. In fact, the recent (IA) grant that the state of California got, the California Space Authority, includes the Kern County area as well as California's Innovation Corridor. So there is so much potential in this area, and so much of it is driven by women-owned businesses, small businesses, and led by women in this area. So I'm very proud to be amongst you, and look forward to this afternoon.

GOVERNOR: Thank you very much, Vicky. For us the bottom line is to make everyone successful, to make it easy to do business. And when I was campaigning for the governorship I went around to talk to business leaders then, to small business owners, and I recognized very quickly that a lot of those businesses are owned by women. As a matter of fact, statistics show that 51 percent of all the small businesses are owned by women, which is staggering. And my wife, even if I would forget about this fact, my wife will remind me every day. This is all she talks about all the time, how impressed she is by how many women own their own businesses and run businesses.

And of course it's very challenging for women, more so, I think than for guys, because you also are much more involved usually in family and raising the kids than men are, and so it really makes it very difficult. But even though with all those challenges you manage it and you are successful, so we are very happy about that.
And I think that since I came into office one of the things that I promised myself that I would do is to turn the economy around first, most of all, because I always said we first have to recover, then we can reform the system that got us into trouble in the first place, and then we have to rebuild California, which means the infrastructure of California. And so we have been very happy about the success that we have seen in bringing the economy back, because when you think about it, the month when I was campaigning there were 23,000 people that lost jobs. And now, since then, we have gained 575,000 jobs since I came into office, since November of 2003, and a lot of it because of the small businesses.

But we created a positive business atmosphere, which was the key thing. We right away sent a message by sending back the 4 billion dollars in car tax, to put that money back into the people's pockets by rolling back that car tax. It's always safer in people's pockets than with government, trust me.
The other thing we did was Worker's Comp reform. Even though it was a huge struggle, and even though everyone said that we will never be able to do it, but we did it. Because when it got stalled, then we went out to collect the signatures, and we collected 1.2 million signatures. And every time I put another 100,000 signatures on the table, they agreed to 2 more points in the reforms that we wanted. So eventually we had 1.2 million signatures, and they signed out reforms that we wanted.
We promised 25 percent -- because you never know exactly what you're going to get, so we thought we should promise low, and maybe -- maybe -- deliver high. And that's exactly what happened. Now we see 40 percent average of drops already in Worker's Comp costs, and we were just told that there will be another 16 percent of drops coming. So it's really spectacular how well those reforms work.

Of course, in Sacramento they are already now debating over, "Maybe that's too good, maybe we should change it and roll it back again the way it was." And so they have hearings now about that, which they had this last week. But obviously any bill of changes will have to cross my desk, and has to be signed to me. I'm very good in vetoing things, and my veto pen is always ready, you know, for anything that is a job killing bill. I veto the bill. That's what we have done over this last two years plus and we are going to continue doing that, because we know what is important for you is to be able to afford to do business. It has to be affordable. And we already have high property prices and we have high energy prices, so you don't need to have more self-inflicted wounds like high costs of Worker's Comp and all of those things.
We want to make sure that we pay attention so that the loans will be available, that there is money available for businesses so that you can run your business, so you can expand your businesses, so you can enough inventory, so you can hire more people, and all this. Or if you need to move, or whatever it is, that loans should become available more easily, because that is power, if you can have the money available.
I think it's also important to recognize the fact that we are in a world economy now, a global economy. It's not anymore like you're trying to deal with just California. You want to sell things in other states and in other countries. And that's why we go overseas on trade missions, like we went to Japan on a trade mission, we went to China on a trade mission.

China, as you know, is exploding. Wherever you look there are cranes, they are building, and they are expanding very quickly because of their population increase. We want to make sure that we can be partnering with them and be part of that kind of an explosion. And so for that, we of course need the infrastructure, and therefore we are concentrating now on building the roads and building our universities, expanding our school system and all this, because all of those things are important for the future of California.
So this is why we want to make sure that we are going to go now around the state and talk to business leaders like you, and to also hear you, not just for us to talk, but to hear you. That's what I'm really interested in, is to hear your concerns, to hear the things that worry you, the things that we can do better as government. Because we see it, our administration and Vicky and I, we both have seen it always that government should be a partner, your partner to prosperity, rather than to be an obstacle to success. We want government to get out of the way and let businesses do what they do best, which is to do business and to satisfy their customers. That's what it is.

So anyway, I would like now to hear from you on some of the difficulties you have and the things that we maybe can do better. And maybe you want to start?

Roundtable Discussion

PANEL: Sure.

GOVERNOR: Please.

PANEL: I know, being a business owner and a lot of you owning your own businesses, the fact that Worker's Comp has seemed to have just gone outrageous. And at some point you almost feel like a horse that's pulling a cart, that the state keeps filling the cart and you have to keep pulling and absorbing these costs.

And since the Governor has been in office I have seen a dramatic decrease in our Worker's Compensation. In fact, your renewal actually occurred on Monday, and I had a 12,000 dollar a year drop in my Worker's Compensation. And that is a direct savings that I pass on to my employees through raises and through bonuses so that they can support their families and have their lives be a little improved as a direct affect of what he's doing right now in Sacramento. And I appreciate everything, every dollar of that is very well used. My employees appreciate it.

GOVERNOR: Thank you.

PANEL: And I want to thank you for that. So that is just my story. I don't know who else has experienced that. I know the car tax was --

GOVERNOR: Let me ask you something about that, because I think an important thing seems to be education, because every company needs talented people. And how difficult is it for you to find talented people to work? Because it seems to me when I went around the various different departments, I could see one department was specifically high technology, fixing computers and working on all those things. And it seemed to me those were very talented people. Is it hard for you to get the talent?

PANEL: Absolutely. We believe -- and raising our crop is really what we've had to do, unfortunately, because of the cuts that happened in education during Gray Davis' reign. A lot of the vocational things that happened in schools were cut, and so the students weren't coming out of high schools having these experiences and this knowledge in the technology industry like they should have. So we've kind of brought them in under our wing and had to kind of, like I said, raise our own crop and educate them and bring them up to the technical level. Instead of putting our bait out and trying to find these technicians --

GOVERNOR: Right, right. Yeah.

PANEL: -- we've had to really invest in the future of our industry, and we realize that.

GOVERNOR: We believe very strongly that education is a very important component, and this is why I pay a lot of attention. And we put money specifically into career-tech education because there are a lot of youngsters that are not interested at this point, when they are maybe 16 or 17 years old, to go into higher education. They want to learn a trade, a profession, something. They want to be maybe a plumber or a carpenter, a chef, whatever it may be. And we have not yet really paid enough attention to those things. Or a computer technician, whatever it may be. I think that we should provide that already in high schools and then continue on in community colleges so one can get a degree in that and really get certified and become really talented in that. And then if they later on want to go on to higher education, that's fine.

I started out also in learning a trade. I learned how to be a salesman in Austria, from 15 to 18, before I went into the military. And I loved that, and never realized that I’m going to be able to use this talent of what I learned. In everything I ever had to do I had to sell also. You know, bodybuilding, I came over here, I had to sell the idea of fitness and training, and everyone ought to train, and the equipment and the food supplements and all of those things. And the same was in the movie business. You can do the best movie in the world, but if you don't know how to market it and sell it, you know, that's a big part of business. And now, of course, being governor, it's the same thing again. You've got to go out there and sell your ideas about infrastructure or reform, whatever it is, and market it and do the same thing again. So you can't away from that. So I'm glad that I had that training, even though I got then my degree over here in America when I came over here. But that training is extremely important.

So we want to fund education. We are spending this coming year 54 billion dollars on education. It's an increase of 7 billion dollars since I came into office. We put much more money into career-tech education, also charter schools, and to give people an alternative and all of this.

But I would like to hear maybe from others about -- what do you think about education and how important that is?

PANEL: Can I just --

GOVERNOR: Sure.

PANEL: On the vocational education, we just sent a survey out a couple of months ago to our membership, and it was really addressing what skills are lacking in students when they come out of school that would make them successful when they're hired by you? And how do resolve the problems that we have? And we had an over 75 percent response that it was either important or very important to bring back the vocational ed and the career-tech and those types of programs, and that they thought that would go a huge way toward making a better transition for students into the workplace in Bakersfield. So I think you're right on track with funding for that.

GOVERNOR: Did you also have a thought on that? Yes, please.

PANEL: I would just to like to -- coming from (IA) where we have a tremendous brain trust in that community and a challenge. But speaking of selling, we need to find a way to sell our children who are in 3rd and 4th grades to study math and science. And I don't know how we get them interested that early. But one of the things I've found is sometimes the teachers are kind of intimidated. The technologies have moved so fast, and teachers kind of back off, I think, from getting into that. And somehow we've got to strengthen that aspect so that the teachers can inspire the kids, and the teacher is not afraid to lead out in those fields. Because we need engineers and scientists, we're way behind. It's going to take a real serious thrust to help us catch up.

GOVERNOR: Yes. Well, I totally agree with you, and we have seen that, that we don't have enough math and science teachers in this state. We don’t have enough teachers as it is, but I think we're really short on math and science teachers. And because those professions are really needed, that you need those skills, especially in your industry and what you are doing here, that we actually speed up the process to create more math and science teachers. So we got together with the university system to speed up that whole program, because we don't have enough. So we try to do everything, including nurses' training. You know, we don't have enough nurses, for instance. There are so many professions where we don't have enough. There are 14,000 vacancies with nurses, and we need to fill that as quickly as possible. So if it's teachers or nurses, there are so many professions where we really have to do a much better job in filling those jobs as quickly as possible.
PANEL: And I think the vocational approach is good, too, because there are some people who don't want to be engineers and scientists --

GOVERNOR: That's right.

PANEL: -- and they don’t fit in that. Certainly that is an important field, but I just feel with where technology is going and with the competition with the rest of the world, we just really need to do everything possible that we can to create that kind of hunger among kids to --

BRADSHAW: Part of what the Governor has been focusing on as well is to get kids to begin to think of what they're looking for in their future so they can start preparing before they graduate from college -- as opposed to graduating from college and then deciding what they want to be -- is to begin focusing earlier so they can take those kinds of classes when they know that it's going to be important to them.
PANEL: And science fairs and those kinds of things make kids think, "Gee, that could be me." We put on an aerospace expo here in Kern County to try to attract, and got speakers like some people from Mojave, some of the things they're doing in the space world. And the kids need to touch that, it needs to be part of a reality that's not too remote for them.
GOVERNOR: Right, right. Yes?

PANEL: I think your commitment to education is especially important to us here because, as you know, our school age children are growing at a much faster -- the numbers are growing at a faster pace than the rest of the state as a whole. And so not only do they come sometimes with more issues than in other parts of the state, but there are so many more of them, so it's especially important to us.

GOVERNOR: Right, right. Well, this I why when we talk about our infrastructure I told the lawmakers that it is extremely important that we don't talk just about transportation, that we have to recognize that education is part of the infrastructure, that we have to go and build more classrooms. We are short on classrooms. There are many kids that are being taught in overcrowded classrooms, and it's unfair to the teachers, it's unfair to the students and to the parents.

So in my proposal we have to build 40,000 new classrooms, especially with smaller schools -- not anymore those human factories that they have built with 5,000 students, where the principal doesn’t know anymore who the students are, but to build smaller schools -- build more classrooms, and to modernize another 140,000 classrooms, because a lot of schools are falling apart. They are old, the classrooms are old, and they have not been kept up, so it's very important for that to also happen. We also put more -- we also in our infrastructure proposal is to expand our universities, because with this increase in population we have now -- the universities have been built for 25 million people, but not for 37. Definitely not for 42, which we're going to have in 10 years from now.

We're going to have 42 million people, and they say that our population is going to increase in the next 20 years by approximately 30 percent. That's an equivalent of 3 cities the size of Los Angeles. Think about that. So of course we are already bursting at the seams. That's why we need to expand our universities, we need to expand our community colleges and our schools and all of those things. So that's all part of it, so that we can produce smart kids. Because they are going to run, they are going to be responsible for the future of this state.

So we pay a lot of attention to that, and also put our money where our mouth is. If we talk about better education and more spending, we're going to put the money there.

And the same is with the infrastructure. And our infrastructure, the Strategic Growth Plan I call it, hopefully within the next few weeks we're going to have it all done. Democrats and Republicans now in Sacramento are negotiating, and they all have the will, both parties have the will to make it happen, to make it work. And so I think they're going to come to an agreement so that we can put it on the November ballot.

Of course people said that we failed because we didn't make it on the June ballot, but how can you call this failure when you only negotiated for three weeks? It takes a month to buy a house. So how can you do it in three weeks? But it's the biggest infrastructure package in the history of California, and that takes longer sometimes, especially when you go into the small print and you start writing down the things that you agree to. All of a sudden the devil is in the details, as they always say. And we had 120 pages of written material in front of us of things that we all have agreed to, and then when we read through it we realized that it wasn't exactly reflecting of what we said. And then we said, "Let's not rush it. Let's not try to force it, making the deadline. Let's go and take another few weeks and work on it and make sure that it works well and it is a great package that we all can be proud of." And that's what we have done.

What other problems do you face in doing business here? I would like to hear some of the difficult moments, some of the things that make you really frustrated and angry, and you say, "Why in this state, and in no other state?" Whatever it may be, I'd like to hear those things. And maybe there are ways where we can help you.

Because one of the things that we did -- I just want to add that -- and that is, we created a Business Portal where anyone from around the world can get in touch with our website and find out how to relocate their business here in California, how to expand, how to add, how to move, how to finance. Any of things, if you want to know any information, that information will be available through our website. So I think that that's also a very important thing to help businesses.

But let's hear some of the difficulties that you may have. I see you're shaking your head a lot. Let's hear from you.

PANEL: I don’t know that we're angry about it, but one frustration that we've experienced in my family's businesses is that when you hit 50 employees in California all kinds of additional regulations and requirements kick in that a lot of times a small business can't afford, particularly my family's restaurant where most of the employees are part-time. They would actually like to hire more people, offer more jobs. We have CSUB students who would like to come and work part-time as a server, but they can't because they can't afford to go above that number 50.

I was just wondering if there was any way to create some flexibility in that number, perhaps considering the type of business? Or perhaps there might be other ways to calculate when a business goes from a small business to a larger business that then has more requirements?

BRADSHAW: Let me --

GOVERNOR: Please.

BRADSHAW: A lot of those are federal requirements as well as state requirements, and they are, unfortunately state laws, that it's in statute. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't talk to your local legislator, because they're the ones that are going to bring about the change. And I think, as our workforce changes and you do have a lot of part-time kids that who are going through school, they don't want to work full-time. And it's important that some of our rules be adapted to fit the lifestyles of the workforce, and not assume it's always a full-time workforce. And I think that most people are probably pretty receptive to that. We just need to adapt old laws to fit new circumstances.

GOVERNOR: Yes, please.

PANEL: Working as an out-source human resources department, whether the employer has one employee or sometimes 300 or 400 employees, the frustration I hear at every level is, "We don’t understand what laws we have to comply with and how. Who is the Labor Commissioner versus the Department of Fair Employment and Housing? Where is Unemployment? How does this all fit in?"

And employers will call the Labor Commissioner for information and can receive three answers in three phone calls in one day. And they actually think they're complying, and find out thousands of penalties dollars later that they haven't.

PANEL: Right.

PANEL: And so streamlining somehow that system so the average employer can understand where they go for what and that all of these departments serve different purposes would be an extremely important move.

BRADSHAW: And it's even more complicated when you know that there is federal jurisdiction as well as state jurisdiction. And to tell you the truth, that was one of the reasons we created the Portal, is so that you do have one single entry point to get that kind of information. Now, when you're talking about a specific like, "Here's my particular circumstances, how do I comply with the law?" Those are a little more intricate, and it really sometimes depends on how you ask the question. Because sometimes we know that if you ask the question enough different ways you'll finally get the answer that you actually wanted. And we're actually trying to move a lot of those things into regulations, so that it's not left up to individual --

PANEL: (IA)

BRADSHAW: Right. You can read it and then you know what it is. So we're trying to move in that direction.

PANEL: And educating employers somehow, because the employer with 10 employees or 15 employees, they don't realize or understand until they're behind with pretty large penalties. So that's important.

BRADSHAW: You know what we've done this year? We've had, I think it's five different new employer workshops, and we've gone into -- in fact there was one, I believe, in Fresno. And if you want to do one down here we'd be delighted to do one. We bring in the state, the federal, and local jurisdictions, and it's all geared to brand new employers, how to keep them in compliance before they fall out of compliance and get themselves into trouble. Who they need to resister with, how they go about doing that. We actually bring the people down there to help them do that.

PANEL: Well, even through webinars.

BRADSHAW: Right, absolutely.

PANEL: Because a lot of our clients can't leave their business during the day to go deal with the issue. They've got too much going on.

BRADSHAW: We do it on Saturday and Sunday.

PANEL: Yeah.

BRADSHAW: In fact, we try to do things for employers not during the workday, because we figure they're working. So we do most of our stuff at night and weekends.

GOVERNOR: But efficiency, I think, is a key word, and it's something that we have been struggling with ever since I've come into office. Because even if you know the things where you can be more efficient, sometimes to undo the various different departments that actually hold things up, it's very difficult to do in Sacramento. In politics in general.

We tried that in various different departments. We actually wanted to get rid of some of the boards and the commissions that were unnecessary. It was impossible. There were protests immediately, and the amount of phone calls we got, because each one of those departments has its constituents and people that are hanging on it and are relying on it for jobs and all of this.

We are now trying to update our technology also in Sacramento, because when we came in each department had a different computer system, and one department didn't know what the other department was doing. It was absolutely ludicrous.

So to bring that all up to standard and make it more efficient, I think, is a key thing. Because in the end, what is government for? It's to be a servant of the people. No matter which area it is, you've got to be able to produce the driver's license as quickly as possible when people want to get a new driver's license, or when they register a car that can be done over the internet so you don't have to stand there every time for two, three hours in line. It's unnecessary today. We have a different technology. And so we did a lot of those things, but sometimes you fight a big struggle and a lot of resistance there, because it's the status quo. It just hangs there.

PANEL: I served on the California Small Business Board under Governor Wilson, so I know how slow it moves, also. And just as we began to make some progress --

GOVERNOR: Right.

PANEL: -- things changed.

PANEL: All good things take time.

STAFF: Governor, we need to wrap this up, because we need you to sign a new executive order.

GOVERNOR: Well, I'd like to hear a few more questions, if you don't mind, because this is so important to me. I'd like to hear from everyone, if we possibly can. Yeah, if I can hear from you, please.
PANEL: My question is, what's in a name? I am a mobile notary service, and this also goes to agriculture. I talked to my sister-in-law this morning, and they are small family farmers. It's an immigration issue which may be timely today because we had some protests downtown on the immigration issue.

GOVERNOR: You mean here in Bakersfield?

PANEL: At the high school.

PANEL: Yes, today we had some protests.

GOVERNOR: Join the club.

PANEL: And it is an issue of what's in a name. This is an issue of streamlining, what is a name, what constitutes someone's name? When I go to sign loan documents with a customer, in many cases I am the only human being who has seen that individual in the entire financial transaction that can be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars at a time. If the name on the loan documents doesn't match what's on the ID, we need to make sure folks understand there's a problem here. There's a problem here. The same goes with employers. You may have a social security name that says one thing, a driver's license that says another. How do we make sure that folks understand one name is one name is one name, instead of three names, five names, who knows how many names? We need one name.

GOVERNOR: I totally agree with you.

PANEL: How do we do that?

GOVERNOR: It's -- of course, we the state don't have much to do with that. It is the federal government. This is why I have been stressing ever since I have been elected that we have true immigration law reform, because I think our immigration laws are outdated. It deals with things that happened 20 years ago, but sure not what's happening today. We have a global economy. I think we have to recognize that businesses here in California want to be able to hire people, if they can't get enough of the workforce here in California, they should be able to go outside the country and hire people from outside. We should get rid of some of those caps and quotas that we have where you can only bring in a certain amount. That is not good enough anymore, so all of that has to redone. We also then, when we have a system in place where we can have, let's say, a guest worker program where you can bring people in whose background has been checked, or we know then this is their real name.

PANEL: Yes.

GOVERNOR: Because right now they don't have the birth certificate, they have maybe a Matricula card. Some of the Matricula cards, the newer ones, are actually very good. But there are some Matricula cards from further back that are falsified Matricula cards. Then we saw, for instance, in various different states where they have like 200,000, 250,000 falsified social security numbers and all this. So there's a lot of that going on. There are a lot of people that have driver's licenses that are not with the right name and all this. So all of that will be straightened out as soon as we have a coherent and good immigration system, and immigration law.

And this is why we have been putting the pressure on the federal government to solve that, because it will help the companies here, the farmers, construction, hotels, restaurants, whatever business it is. There are so many different businesses where you need more people, and we don't have enough of the workforce in order to do certain jobs, or whatever job it may be. And I think as soon as we have that done, a lot of things will then become a reality where we have then one name, where we can then give the driver's license to people that are here legally and are working in the guest worker program, and a lot of problems will be solved then.

But we the state can't really get involved. All we can do is we can -- at the Governors Conference we meet and talk about immigration issues. At the Western Governors Conference we talked about it. At the Border Governors Conference we talk about it, and we send resolution after resolution to the federal government to let them know, "Look this is what we believe ought to be done, because we are hands-on people, we see firsthand the problems that we face here."

So hopefully now the debate is -- the Senate is going to debate it, it finally made it out of the Judiciary Committee, and I think this is a good move forward. So I'm looking forward to hearing all the different ideas between the Bush administration and Teddy Kennedy's and McCain's and everyone else's, to put that together and have a good healthy debate over that issue and come up with something really good. I totally agree with you.

Any other problems that you face? Yes?
PANEL: This is kind of (IA) and just our personal problems. However, the soaring cost of energy certainly does affect everyone. And I just hope there's some way that we in California can be leaders in alternative energy sources. We're so rich in -- Kern County is so rich in resources. We have a lot of geothermal. We're the land of sunshine; we ought to be leading the world in solar power. But the people I work with in trying to help get those kinds of projects going run into so much red tape it really holds us back, and we're already way behind. Is there any way that somehow we could focus on streamlining the process through the environmental issues to help enable and encourage rather than discourage the kind of attempts we need to increase our alternative energy sources?

GOVERNOR: Well, first of all, the environmental people have actually been very helpful, because they believe very strongly in solar power and in alternative energy and renewable energy and all that. We have been struggling with that issue for more than two years, to get the million solar roof initiative going, which I believe in very strongly. And we fought and fought and fought, and finally the legislators could never come to an agreement, because they always wanted to tack on something else that had nothing to do with it. Like all of a sudden last year, just before we came to an agreement and signed the bill and passed it upstairs, they came and said, "But it has to be done all built with the prevailing wage."

PANEL: Public Works.

GOVERNOR: So it's a Public Work. So I said, "No, not really, because it is not coming from the tax revenues." I said, "It is a totally different thing, so it does not really fall under prevailing wage." They said, "Well, it doesn't matter if it comes from tax revenues or not. We want prevailing wage." So I said, "Well, but mathematically it doesn't make any sense, because if we give a 5,000 dollar incentive to people that put a solar roof on -- let's say it costs 12,000 and we give them a 5,000 dollar incentive -- and if it costs now 3,000, 4,000 dollars more because of prevailing wage, you wipe out the incentive." I said, "So then it wouldn't make any sense." "Well, we don't care."

So those are the kinds of things. Then all of a sudden it became a dispute, who will install the solar panels? That became a huge dispute. I said, "What do you mean, who installs it? That's a no-brainer. The people that have installed it up until now continue installing it," I said. You know, it's like asking all of a sudden, who is going to cut your hair? Well, the hairdresser, or the person that has been doing it all along.

But all of a sudden that became a battle. Now it has to be officially only the electricians that can really do that. So I said, "Well, there's no reason why we would change all of the whole system and everything and lock out the people that have been experts in installing solar panels." So it became that kind of a battle.

And then finally we just said, "Look, let's forget about this. Let's go to the PUC." And we went to the PUC and the PUC adopted that, and now we have the million solar roof initiative done through the PUC and we are up and running with the whole thing, and it will be done. So what we are doing is when we can't something through in Sacramento, we then try to go and do it through other ways, and eventually we always succeed with those things. So that is the key thing.

But we will have the green building initiative, which we have passed, to make us really energy efficient. And we have to do everything we can to really be creative on that, because as you know, we haven't built enough power plants and we haven't built enough power lines. And for years and years and years -- it is not that the deregulation that has failed, it is just the way to get the permits. The permitting process, to get those things built has been failing.

And now -- you know, last year we were lucky that we didn't have any blackouts except when there was a line one time down, there was an accident. But we had enough energy last year, and hopefully we will have enough energy this year. And we are now already starting to build finally some power plants, and also reactivating some of the old ones and cleaning them up and all this, so they don’t create too much pollution and all this.

But it is a real struggle, because like I said, we have a population increase. It is growing very fast. And as you increase, you need more of everything. And the great thing about it is, it was last year when we had all of a sudden it got very tight with the energy, the amount of energy we had. That was not the great part. The great part was when I found out, "Well, why is it that all of a sudden last year it was this, and now we're needing this amount?" They said, "Because the economy is doing well." He says, "There are more and more businesses now in California. Businesses are expanding and they need the energy." So I said, "Well, that's actually a good idea. I like to have that kind of a problem."

But we are working on that, because that's a big challenge to first of all provide enough energy, and to provide alternative and renewable energy, and at the same time to prove to the world that we are the only state, the only place, where you can in fact have a growing economy, booming businesses, and at the same time cleaning our act up in the environment to make sure that we clean our air and clean our water. That is the key thing. That's a challenge that is good for every family. If you are a Republican family, or if you are a Democratic family, you want your kids to breathe clean air and to drink clean water. That's the bottom line, and that's what we're shooting for.

So again I want to say thank you to all of you. I have now a proclamation I want to sign here, and I just want to make it official, and give you these two pages here.

We all know that small businesses are the backbone of California's economy, so today I am signing an executive order -- executive order, this is big time -- to boost this vital part of our economy. It will require all agencies and departments and boards and commissions to name a small business advocate. Those advocates will use streamlined bid procedures so that small businesses can get at least 25 percent of the nearly 9 billion dollars that California purchases each year in goods and services.

And the advocates will conduct five regional workshops over the next 12 months to promote small business participation in state contracts. We will ask all of the constitutional office holders to follow us in this new program. So what this is about is we want to have small businesses get some of the action of the state. So now I'm going to sign this -- (Applause) -- with the official Governor's pen. There are always three copies. Hopefully -- do we have three copies?

BRADSHAW: Do you have three copies?

PANEL: The thing that's wonderful about that is five years ago we looked to bring in large businesses (IA) and in the last five years our community has changed its mind and we decided that we need to support small business and try to grow our own, as Monique said. So thank you very much, because this is exactly where we are.

GOVERNOR: It's our pleasure. And I think that this state is doing just wonderfully right now with the economy, and it's because of the small businesses. And when you think about that, 90 percent of all our businesses are small businesses. It's staggering to think about those numbers. So we are very excited about it, and I can promise you that we will continue doing everything that we can to make you successful. Because when you are successful, then we can have more revenues, and when we have more revenues -- think about it -- when I came into office we had 76 billion dollars in revenues. Now we have 93 billion dollars in revenues. And that money we can use then for the Healthy Family programs, for education, for the poor and the disabled, for again providing better universities and better roads and all of this. So the money goes to good purposes, but you need the revenues. That's the power that we need.

So thank you very much for your contribution. A big hand to all of you for participating in this. Thank you very much. (Applause)

PANEL: Governor, I think we can appreciate your entrepreneur spirit and the fact that you yourself were a businessman first before a politician.

GOVERNOR: Thank you.

PANEL: Thank you. You understand where we're coming from.

GOVERNOR: Thank you. And I think you take this.

PANEL: Thank you. I can get that.

GOVERNOR: Exactly, yes. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Any questions here?

Questions/Answers

Q. Governor?

A. Yes?

Q. In our community there's a small restaurant that's threatened by eminent domain to take the property for building a large shopping center. And the government has not apparently negotiated very much in that instance. I know there's a lot of concern about it, and there are many different proposals for how to change California's laws regarding imminent domain. As the governor, how do you set the tone for how the state will determine how it takes and does not take property from small businesses?

A. Well, I personally am not a believer that we should take one business out and take that property away for another business. I think it only can be done for a highway or freeway, of if you build an energy line or something like that. (Applause)

For a public project that is extremely important for the people as a total, but not for just thinking, well this other business could gross maybe more money and bring more in sales taxes or whatever it is. That is not the right way to go, and I think it's an abuse of the system.

Q. Are you planning to work with anyone or sponsor initiatives on your own that would make that law in California?

A. Well, I think there are bills being introduced in Sacramento already. Yes, anything else?

Q. You talked about it a little bit in the meeting, but in the last couple of days and today in Kern County, all but one high school walked out over the immigration issue. Where do you stand specifically on what's before Congress, and what do you think of the students walking out of schools?

A. Well, you know, my preference is that the students don't walk out of schools, and my preference is that the students use the time, which is very valuable, to stay in school and to study, because the ultimate power is knowledge, and I think that the more they get, they stay in school, the better it is.

But again, as you know, this is nothing unique. We have -- maybe the size of it and amount of kids that protest is unique. But kids all over the world, students, are usually the first ones that are out there and that protest. So one has to also understand that, you know, it's their way of expressing themselves.

So I think the key thing is, as I always say, is you've got to keep calm, and we've got to, in an organized way, keep the pressure on the federal government to get this resolved once and for all, which will be good for everybody. Because we have a situation here where we have still borders that have not yet been secured, and it concerns me, because it's one of my number one responsibilities, is to provide safety and to protect the people of California. And so I think that those things ought to be addressed. Even though we pass tough laws on human trafficking and all of those kinds of things, but I think that we have to secure the borders, and the federal government is responsible for that. They're also responsible that people can legitimately come into this country and work here with a guest worker program. So all of those things have to be ironed out, and I think the key thing for us all, and for you the media, is to put the pressure on the federal government to get that established.

Thank you very much. Thank you all.

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