Fighting to Keep the City's Cash

The past year has not exactly panned out how Ingrid Alverde envisioned it.

Last June Alverde moved to Petaluma to become the city’s economic development manager, charged with attracting new businesses, diversifying the tax base and reducing vacancies.

But following the California Supreme Court in the state, Alverde has devoted countless hours trying to hold on to some $30 million generated by the city’s redevelopment district.

As of late, her days have been spent preparing reports, budgets and other documents justifying why the city should hold on to money raised through the redevelopment district’s tax increment and already allocated to various projects.

On a recent day, Alverde, who as a mother of four children knows something about multi-tasking, was scrambling to meet a deadline for a budget to submit to the California Department of Finance.

If the document arrived late, Petaluma would have to pay a penalty of $10,000 a day, no laughing matter for a city that has less than $300,000 in reserves and has had to slash $16 million over the past four years just to balance the books.

“We are in survival mode,” Alverde said. “And as a result I’m getting to spend a lot less time on economic development.”

Alverde spent 10 years in various redevelopment positions in Poway, Calif., a suburb of 47,000 northeast of San Diego. While there, she worked on “business attraction,” bringing big box stores like Costco, Home Depot and Kohl’s to that community.

It's what she's good at and why she was hired for the job.

And despite the nonstop deadlines, bureaucratic jargon and ever-shifting requirements of the post-redevelopment world ("It’s a mystery to most of us because the rules keep getting rewritten," she says), Alverde still manages to find time to do what she knows best: be a cheerleader for existing and potential businesses.

“The business retention work continues and it amazing when you realize how sensitive companies are to whether a city wants them here,” Alverde said. “Businesses are always looking for a good deal and it’s important to keep them happy.”

To do so, Alverde checks in with businesses on a regular basis and holds meetings to find out what the city can do to help them.

Over the past six months, she has met with the group to discuss putting on an auto show to attract more car buyers, with Strauss Family Creamery to urge them to relocate their processing facility to Petaluma and discussed ways to safely process wastewater from food manufacturers without requiring them to pre-treat it on site, which some businesses view as a burden.

(Others say it’s necessary to make sure contaminants are cleared up before the water is delivered to the wastewater treatment facility.)

"She’s done a fabulous job," said Anthy O'Brien, chairwoman of the Chamber of Commerce's Economic Development Committee. "She jumps right in, has researched everything and is not afraid to ask the questions...she’s a huge asset to our community."

Another project Alverde has been working on is a plan to open a "boutique food incubator" or a large commercial kitchen shared by small businesses that may be now prevented from storing flour, sauces and other perishable products at their facilities and unable to expand.

“A lot of people are recognizing that Petaluma is the most likely place in the county for this type of facility," Alverde said.

While longterm projects percolate, it's redevelopment budgets, meetings and reports that need to given top priority. After all, if Petaluma can't rescue its redevelopment funds, Alverde herself could be out of a job.