♪ ♪ What's the reality of Sacramento's economic future?

What are the forces and big issues that will shape whether families can afford to live here, whether employers can hire, and whether downtown and our own neighborhoods feel like places people want to invest in.

Barry Broome, CEO of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, joins us today to talk about what prosperity looks like in the year ahead.

Barry, what does prosperity look like for Sacramento, given where we are right now in the future?

- Well, it's- it's improved dramatically.

And I think it- I think, you know, we have to learn how to talk honestly about the economy.

You know, we have this incredibly odd cultural trend going on in the country where, you know, if you raise an appropriate question about the government, you can be impacted in a negative way.

You see that in D.C.

That happens in the state capital, too.

You know... - Really?

- You know.

Absolutely.

you can get put on a list very quickly in the state capital, a very public critic of the direction of the state.

So I think from a prosperity standpoint, we're positioned better than we ever have been before.

And I think the economic data shows that.

But, you know, it's a, uh, a Herculean act by my board and the community that has moved that needle in that way.

Whether you're Gary May at Aggie Square, Luke Wood trying to build a downtown asset, you know.

There's people in our community at the leadership level on my board that are taking really big risks for our town.

It's important that we rally behind their big risks, because really, we have to become a community that really has an appetite for risk going forward to reach our potential.

- Well, let me talk to you a little bit about that.

So let's start with downtown.

There- about 18 months ago, I had, uh, the president and the board chair for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership on and they were talking about how challenged downtown Sacramento was.

And the one thing, more than anything else that they looked at as potentially a saving grace, was Governor Newsom ordering state employees to come back to work to reanimate our downtown.

Has that happened yet, or- or are we still basically a vacuum downtown?

- Yeah, it hasn't happened yet.

Um... - Why not?

- I don't know completely.

But, you know, this kind of speaks to what I think is the problem in the country.

And, you know, so I'm- I'm a former labor guy.

I've been in six unions.

I worked for the labor movement five years in Cleveland.

I'm a son of labor.

That's what they would describe me back in Ohio.

Grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone's in a union.

And, um, and the labor movement was something I was really proud of, which meant, you know, they fought for their workers, but they also fought for their communities.

So, you know, SEIU has tremendous power, and they're putting a full court press on right now that none of their workers ever have to come back down.

- What?

Hold on.

That none of their workers?

- Well, theyre-theyre, I mean, who doesn't want to be remote, right?

Young people want to be remote.

So it's understandable that their workers want to remain remote.

I know Governor Newsom is really working hard to get that done, but, um, you know, the information I've got-- - Is he really though?

Is Governor Newsom actually working hard?

Because, you know, Governor Newsom sometimes does the big press conference and the press release, but then the follow through is, uh, less than, uh, powerful.

- Well, I'll take the governor's office word for it that they're backing in Sacramento on this.

But, you know, if you look at our delegation, you look at our elected officials, I mean, uh, SEIU to Democrats in California, it's like the National Rifle Association in Texas.

You know, um, you know, they're, uh, the standard bearer for the Democratic nominees, the endorsement, who labor goes with.

I mean theyre incredibly powerful, they're incredibly influential.

Their workers want to remain remote, and Labor's doing what they think is right, which is doing what their workers want.

- So in all fairness to Governor Newsom, okay, Ill- I'll criticize, but then I'll come back and say this, this deal, uh, with Mark Zuckerberg and President Luke Wood, that you and your organization were integrally involved with, um, to bring like campus housing and- and classes and everything else bring, bring the campus downtown.

How much credit should the governor get for that?

- Quite a bit.

- Really?

- Yeah, Meta is not giving us money without Gavin Newsom.

- Okay.

- So first off, the credit belongs to Luke Wood and Michelle Willard.

Michelle Willard, my former colleague who's now the head of economic development external affairs for President Wood.

You know, this is why you want young people in leadership jobs.

These are a couple of young leaders with a big dream.

And they went out with this big dream, and everybody said it was crazy.

And then they got control of the real estate.

And, you know, so the governor has assigned the real estate necessary do this to Sac State.

Now they got $50 million from Meta.

And I- I mean, I could virtually challenge anybody in Sacramento.

You can't get your phone call returned by Meta.

I can't get my phone call returned by Meta.

You know, it's a big beast.

It's a big global institution.

So that $50 million is a big deal.

Angelique Ashby was-was-was pivotal to it, but, you know, Governor Newsome, uh, championed that.

And it wouldn't have happened without him championing it.

- So what do you think is the future?

What-what will- how this- will this transform downtown Sacramento in the future?

- Well, the key thing about it is people need to realize this like a billion dollar project.

So this gets into the part where we have to change as a community.

You know, we see things in zero-sum games.

If Sac State gets $1 billion, that means you didn't, you know, and I'm not sure why we see it that way, but we do.

Versus seeing this as if Sac State gets a billion dollars then the rail yards and the bridge district takes off and the rest of the downtown can now recover.

So we have to kind of get out of the zero-sum game and get into the back the leadership game.

So I think as a community, we have to throw everything we have behind Luke Wood.

He's over his skis.

He's out on the branch.

You know, he's got a you know- - - But he's taking risks to go back to what you said in the beginning.

- Well and that's why he's valuable, right?

So Luke Wood is a very valuable leader because he followed Robert Nelson, who did a great job at Sac State and what he's doing at Sac State that's so important is he's turning Sac State into an enterprise.

And what I mean by that is Sac State is going to have to come up on its own and how it economically revives and sustains itself, because these budget cuts at the state are deep and they're going to continue.

- What's the lesson for our region and our region's leaders that are watching this show - from what Luke would, along with you all and others, Senator Ashby and others - did in landing this type of deal?

Because success leaves clues and the thing to double down on is replicating whatever those behaviors and actions are.

So give us the insight.

- First off, they thought big enough to attract Meta.

Small minded-- small thinking attracts small people and small dollars.

If you want to attract real money and real leaders, you got to think accordingly.

So building this center of democracy in downtown Sacramento, which I think could become a global project if we do it right, because democracy is under fire in the US and then having control of that real estate.

And now I've been in meetings where when people talk about the recovery of the downtown, they just talk about Sac State's project.

So what they've done is they thought big enough, and then they filled a huge void.

There was no vision, there was no recovery strategy.

So they stepped in with a big vision, drew big money, got big support, and now they're filling a big void.

And now they have the chance to pull off something that would not only transform Sacramento, but transform from Sacramento State.

Let's- you know, Michael Crow is Luke's mentor and is a close friend of mine, the president of Arizona State.

So he's one of Luke's mentors.

And when Michael Crow took over Arizona State, it wasn't as good as Sac State.

Not even close.

Sac Sate is away better university than Arizona State, when Crow took it over.

And he had one statement he used to make about Arizona State that was amazing.

He would sit down and say, "Barry, how different would Phoenix's economy be if Arizona State was Stanford?"

- Wow.

- How different would Sac State's economy be if it was Cal Poly?

- And just for the record, ASU is now the largest public university - In the world.

- In the world, and most innovative.

- Speaking about world rankings, you all got a world ranking recently.

Well, what was that?

Tell us about that.

- Well, we were recognized as the number one organization internationally in the world in our field.

So there's a international, the International Economic Development Council, which is in 22 countries, and there's about 4,500 economic development organizations in the United States that are part of it.

You know, they go out and do rankings like- like a few here... Like UC Davis veterinarian schools number one in the world.

Well that came from the academic world on how animal health and veterinary and science returns.

And so Stanford is the number one law school and Berkeley is the number one engineering school.

It's a similar rating to that.

So we got rated number one by our peers.

And, uh... - What do you think- what do you think was behind that rating?

What-what-what was the claim to fame that led to that sort of recognition?

- I think the perf- I mean, right now, California's reputation nationally is really down.

- Oh, yeah.

- And I think to see Sacramento pulling off Solidigm and Bosch and Aggie Square and getting Wilton Rancheria to put money in the- the, uh, sports franchise for the rail yards and-and-and also the caliber of the organization.

I mean, if people who do work in the field of economic development- how do you have 55 CEOs and 22 elected officials working on a single strategy for a decade, in an era where the CEOs are no-shows.

You won't find a CEO in LA.

They're nowhere to be found.

You know, Karen Bass is down there by herself fighting uphill, right?

San Francisco CEOs aren't really at the table like they should be, more so than LA.

Um, but yet our CEOs are all at the table, leaning in and fighting for the community and then our communities - Democrats, Republicans, red, blue, MAGA, progressives - they're working together functionally and changing the outcomes for the community.

- Sounds like how America is supposed to be.

- Supposed to work that way.

They're supposed to be things bigger than you, and they're supposed to be things bigger than your politics.

Thats called America.

- It's called America.

Well, congratulations.

I- I do want to go through kind of like, let's do a baseline here.

So tell us about the wins that are not getting enough airtime among us in the press and therefore not out- out in the community, so we can understand what's been happening.

Because it's kind of like a- a development where it is that in the time it takes to lay the foundation, you don't see much, but then the building starts to raise up.

So tell us what's gone right.

- I mean, the semiconductor impacts are the greatest generational achievement I've seen a community have in my life that's happening here right now.

- Tell us more.

- Well, take Solidigm, right.

Um... Which is, you know, um, in Rancho Cordova.

Right?

So when they show up in Rancho Cordova, it started out- it was going to be a couple hundred people.

Right?

And they had some joint venture with Intel and SK Hynix and called it Solidigm and dumped it in.

But we kept selling up.

So two things were going on.

It's a great example of why GSEC works with a local partner.

Rancho Cordova was rolling out the red carpet.

Rancho Cordova has never told Solidigm "no" one time and that's a really good idea if you want a company to succeed.

- So thats a- so that's a success behavior?

- Yeah.

So you got Rancho behind the scenes; "How do you want it?

When do you want it?"

Well, yeah.

Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

And then SMUD came in.

"How do you want it?"

"When do you want it?"

And then they're getting this great experience in- in Rancho.

And they were building their headquarters in San Jose.

And we went in and just basically through sheer intensity and salesmanship, got the headquarters to Rancho.

So now the top leaders of that company come and live in our community while they're building it.

And they're recently announced- SK Hynix gave $10 billion into the AI platform for investment for Solidigm.

And I think you'll see Solidigm go public within the next six to 12 months.

- Let me put on my cynical journalists hat-- And say this.

- Yeah.

Saying yes, yes, yes and never saying no aren't you know, isn't Rancho Cordova selling out the public?

You know, shouldn't we be tougher on these types of projects?

Did we get our pound of flesh?

How do you respond to that?

- Yeah, well, ten years ago, people used to joke about Rancho Cordova.

And I'm going to take this as a little bit of a pride for us ‘cause we tell every underdog community, you're only an underdog community because you're allowing it.

You don't have to be an underdog community.

And so, you know, when I started, you know, Roseville, Folsom were the shining examples.

Rancho.

Nobody wants to live there.

Elk Grove's a bedroom community.

We immediately fill in all the negatives.

The last community you want to go head to head with in a deal in this town is Rancho Cordova.

- Really?

- Because now they got credibility, right?

So now- and now they went out and made the AI investments.

Nvidia's kicking tires.

And pretty soon, you know, it's going to become a center of technology excellence in the region because it's building their brand and the reputation to do that.

And then it's following through with that.

And it's really a city of really young, dynamic, energetic people.

I mean, there's some Rancho Cordova people that are really dynamic and they feel really good about their city.

So that's a great example where it was a town people kind of poked fun at ten years ago.

That's not a team you want to go head-to-head with now.

- Give us two more success behaviors that need to be replicated.

- I would say Woodland and Yolo County's work in the food and agricultural piece, seeing themselves bigger than they are.

And of course, you know, I don't want to not acknowledge Placer County, but Placer County's been doing mostly the right things for a long time, but they're now on a different level.

And take Bosch.

I mean, Bosch received a $35 million local benefit.

Do you know how much tax income over ten years Bosch could be paying Placer County?

$300 million!

- Really?

- Yeah.

So what's the $35 million?

Take it out of the $300, right?

It's like the investment in Wilton Rancheria in the railyard.

People got so upset with that.

In order for Wilton Rancheria to collect a $93 million infrastructure benefit from the city, they got to pay $500 million in taxes and build out $2 billion.

You want to do that?

If you can do that every day by noon, do it every day by noon.

And then what ought to happen is that should not go from a negotiated deal with Wilton.

That should be standard practice.

- So... it- as a citizen, how is it that we should all be evaluating the economic success of all of this activity?

What are the metrics that we as the public, should be using to-to measure success?

- That's a really important question because I think, you know, I'm looking at my country thinking, what did I do wrong?

- I mean, I never-- - Sure.

- I never look at the country and blame Trump.

You know, I look at the country and blame me.

And I tell progressive Democrats, you know, if you don't like Donald Trump, you always got to remember this: He's twice as popular as you.

That is a real indi- that is a real number, right?

So here we have this guy that people... does these chaotic things that make us upset, say these things that make us upset.

And you're a Democrat.

Well, just remember, he's twice as popular as you in the United States.

So what are we doing?

Or what is the Democrat- What is the longtime civic leader doing wrong that thought he was doing right all this time to sit here, uh, like we are.

I didn't do enough for equality.

I didn't do enough to address inequality.

Um, even though I would say I did more than any of my peers, I still didn't do enough.

And, um, and I think, like a lot of people, I probably took the threats to the democracy as hard to believe.

I just can't believe the democratic principles of America would ever come under fire.

And they are.

And I think the lesson learned is when people don't feel good about their country, they don't feel seen or heard.

They're going to distrust your country, and they're going to allow a group of people to come along and separate them from their own values - So... and the democracy.

- So let's come back, though.

All that being said.

What are the metrics that we should be measuring our success or failure?

- Yeah.

Well 2024 Brookings Institute said the greater Sacramento region had the best economy in the United States.

- Really?

- Out of 54... because they measured things like racial equality and inclusion and regional share.

So we're number three in the United States in how well we share the economy regionally.

A lot of people don't know this, but like Yuba City, Yuba County, those places are really doing well, very quietly growing.

Um, you know, Enterprise Rancheria and the Hard Rocks putting in the 350 acre state-of-the art global entertainment destination asset out there.

So Woodland's doing well, right?

So the region's doing well.

Elk Grove's doing very well.

The region's doing really well.

And so the region's now being taught if you work together, everybody does really well.

It's not a zero-sum game.

- Is that- now that's important.

It's not a zero-sum game.

And obviously it's very clear that issues of inequality and access and fairness are very important to you-- - Very Important.

- Not only professionally, but personally as well.

If you had to pick one thing that we could accomplish to make prosperity even more broadly based within this region that the leadership should take on as an initiative, what would it be?

- I mean, you have to be you know, we had this whole DEI thing, right?

Where, you know, I hate using labels because it gives-- - Oh, go ahead.

- You know, just throws a target on.

Is like common- you know, Common Core remember?

- President Obama?

- Right.

Had the Common Core - educational initiative.

- Sure.

- That came from the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce.

Didn't come from him.

He championed it because he asked the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce, tell me the one thing I can really do to help you, and thats to have a common academic standard across the United States.

So an A in Alabama is an A in San Francisco is an A in Boston.

- Sure.

- So you got to be careful labeling things.

But you know, I think the key thing is we have to intentionally - and I have this program I've been developing with Adonai Mack at Child Action called Opportunity Sacramento, where we will focus on mothers that have at least two kids that work full time, make $36,000 a year, that are on a federal daycare program, that are being possibly in the line of fire on these structural shots coming over.

For whatever reason, those are kind of things that are really hard to do in our community.

Even though it's in our heart, it's not always in our action.

But I think we have to revisit truthfully and thoughtfully, you know, what is equity?

What is inclusion?

And it should be the bulk of everybody's leadership in the-- - So is there one initiative that you would love the region to take on to try and address that?

- I would say Opportunity Sacramento would be one of them, because part of what happens is, like, I grew up blue collar, grew up poor, right?

We were always being left behind.

But, um, you know, if you went to a public school in Ohio like I did and you're a white kid and you were poor, that school system told you you could get out of it.

I don't know if that school system tells a black child they can get out of it.

I don't know if that school system assumes the black child can get out of it, but my school system assumed I should, and I would, and I bought it, and that's how I got out.

And one of the reasons I've had a lifelong work on equity is I looked over at my friends and I saw my friends of color.

Why are they coming out with me?

- It was a curious moment for me - Its a good question.

- Why- why are we- why are we in the same income stream?

I'm coming out and you're not.

Well, no one expects you to come out.

No one tells you can come out.

And then there's another barrier to come out, because I can assimilate.

You know, a poor white male can assimilate a poor black male or black woman cannot assimilate.

They remain black forever, you know, regardless of their credentials.

And so if we don't start in Sa- in California, man, if we're not the leaders in changing that, that's not going to be pervasive.

And I think how we train and hire and, and give people opportunities for work is at the foundation.

- Let's talk about that for a sec.

So we talked about what it is that if the for an initiative for this region to take on, you've named it.

What do we need to stop spending so much money and attention on in order to concentrate our resources?

- We're a patronage town.

We-- - Tell- tell us what that means.

- We mismanage hundreds of millions of dollars every year right here in this town.

- Tell us how.

- Well, I mean, you've seen some of the issues with Cap Radio... Right?

- Sure.

- The executive's been indicted.

You might be following the NAACP a little bit, the back and forth between the county.

You saw Goodwill Industries, where their CFO has been indicted.

You know, when you give everybody money, no one ends up with enough money to make the change.

And what happens is at the end of the year when the public sector is done funding nonprofits- We have 17 chambers of commerce in the city of Sacramento.

- We are actually the nuclear fusion capital of creating nonprofits.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Of the entire United States.

- And when I first came here, I'm like, why?

Well, the government had too much money.

And if you package the 501(c)(3), you could get some grants.

It could be a side hustle.

Maybe it's your vision.

But, you know, we have like 37 PBIDs and each one gets, you know, x amount of thousands of dollars.

So we need to consolidate.

So when I was in Phoenix, there were less than five business groups in the entire region, and two were considered inconsequential.

So the really only three business groups.

So if you're trying to build up Robert Heidts chamber, why do you have 17 local chambers and who's speaking for whom?

And if you took those 17 chambers and you rolled that income into the Metro Chamber, you might have enough capital to be the best chamber in the country.

And I think one of the things we've done is we've been really good at getting CEO support.

So we have the capacity to do our jobs.

But, you know, we really need to, uh- there's very little oversight in California on nonprofit money.

You can see what happened to the, uh, homeless money, right?

We spent all that homeless money.

We didn't get a result.

I've heard numbers as high as $24 billions unaccounted for.

How in the world can the state go out and audit 67,000 nonprofits that they gave that money to?

- Right.

- Versus I wouldve gave it to the UC health care system.

And youd had, you know, 15, 16 points of contact for the homeless money.

And see if the UCS' could have taken the wraparound services and do the things necessary to help people get off the street in a respectful and judicious way.

So we've had too much money.

Were too hyper poli-- - Poorly spent.

- Poorly spent.

- We're hyper political.

We don't tell anybody "no."

We don't treat people who are talented and accomplished- Michael Young, Improve Your Tomorrow, friend of our- Michael Lynch.

Excuse me.

Michael Lynch is one of the most talented guys in town.

He should not- he should never not have money.

You know, he's a superstar guy.

That's a guy that ought to have what he needs to do, what he's doing, because he does it better than anybody else.

But if you look at, you know, youth intervention, there's 100 nonprofits and everybody's getting $200,000.

Well, 100 times $200,000 is a hell of a lot of money.

And if all that was around, Improve Your Tomorrow under a guy like Michael, you know, you might have the best college bound equality program in all of America instead of spreading it across so many people, you know.

And that's- it's going to take really gutsy people who are really willing to make hard decisions because we also have an entitlement mentality, and that is you owe me that money.

And... and versus this money is belongs to the community and it goes out for an outcome.

- I guess I- I would, I would say, while I agree with you, if- if you had been asking me the question, I would have said we have a back scratching mentality where it is, hey, I won't object, uh, to your 200,000 if you don't object to mine.

Sanjay Varshney when he first got here, the economist said that the thing that amazed him so much was that everybody got a piece of the pie and scratched each other's back, and nothing never changed.

That was actually the impetus for the creation of- - Yeah.

- The Greater Sacramento Economic Council.

- Right.

And so, you know, having all these CEOs stay intact for ten years is because we're doing high impact stuff.

Major League baseball, Major league Soccer backing Luke Wood up, backing Gary May at Aggie Square, supporting the semiconductor sector.

And the needles moved, you know.

And it's taken unbelievable dedication and work and great risk.

You know you and I were talking earlier I wasn't everybody's most favorite guy coming into town.

Hey I still might not be everybody's favorite guy, but everybody knows if- if it comes down to Sacramento- - If you're everybody's favorite guy, you're useless.

- Well and also everybody knows I don't think there's anybody that doesn't think I'm going to throw a punch for Sacramento, right?

I think everybody knows if the town's not getting treated properly and I'm in the line of fire on that, we're going to show up and fight.

- So- so in- in 30 words or less, what should we expect in the year to come?

- I think you're going to see remarkably improved outcomes in the bio economy around Aggie Square.

I think you're going to see remarkable improved outcomes in the semiconductor sector.

I think we're still going to have strong announcements.

But we're going to learn a lot about the collective action of the economy because you know these tariffs, right?

January was the worst jobs report since 2009.

Uh, you know, 23, 2024 California was 50th, right.

A recent report came out - we were last in the United States.

We had the highest unemployment rate.

California did so since.

So to have Sacramento rising under these suppressive behaviors shows you how strong we are as a community.

And if we stay united, we're going to be the town everybody's talking about.

And I think we'll leave it there.

Barry Broome, thank you.

And your success is our success.

So keep it moving.

- Thank you very much.

- All right.

And that's our show.

Thanks to our guest and thanks to you for watching Studio Sacramento.

I'm Scott Syphax.

See you next time right here on KVIE.

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