San José Community & Economic Development Committee Meeting – April 28, 2025
San José Community & Economic Development Committee Meeting – April 28, 2025
The City of San José Community & Economic Development (CED) Committee met at 1:30 PM on Monday, April 28, 2025, in Council Chambers. Chair Pam Foley, Vice Chair Rosemary Kamei, and Members Peter Ortiz, Michael Mulcahy, and George Casey were present, establishing a quorum. The committee reviewed the work plan, heard annual and quarterly reports from economic development staff, and voted to accept the reports.
Work Plan Review
- The Housing Balance Status Report (CC 25-0641) was deferred to the May 19 CED Committee meeting to allow time for it to be presented to the HCD Committee first.
- No public comment was offered on the work plan item.
Business Development Division Activities Annual Report
- Deputy Director Blogg Lolich and colleague Vic Farley presented the Fiscal Year 2024-2025 annual report for the Business Development Division. The division is organized into small business and neighborhoods, corporate outreach and engagement, and downtown economic vitality teams.
- Economic context: San José's business stock remained broadly flat in 2024, but the city lost approximately 20,000 jobs, with the largest losses in professional, scientific, and technical services, manufacturing, and retail. Unemployment remained around 4%. Office and retail vacancy rates fell slightly, while industrial vacancy rose modestly. Sales tax was a record for restaurants, but overall sales tax dipped 1%—the first decline in three years—largely due to lower EV car sales and gas prices. Business investment contributed close to 30% of sales tax.
- Small business highlights: 2,500 businesses received permitting advice; 100% of the storefront budget was allocated, resulting in 65 awards; the women's entrepreneurship program created 39 startups and 130 jobs; free legal advice supported 50 business owners. New business improvement districts were established on Tully Road and the Monterey Corridor, with up to four more planned over the next 15 months.
- Corporate outreach: the city estimates it receives almost $3 in revenue for every $1 of staff salaries, and retained or attracted approximately 7,000 jobs in 2024-2025. About 1,100 large employers sustain more than half of the city's jobs. The city supported CHIPS applications resulting in over $90 million in investment, and is promoting San José as an AI hub.
- Downtown highlights: the Moment Pop-Up Program, NVIDIA conference with more than 25,000 attendees, City Council approval to pedestrianize Post Street, the unpermitted vendor program, and downtown safety and security improvements.
- Staffing: the division currently has 18 positions (12 permanent and six time-limited), decreasing to 15 by July 1, 2025. Staff said the OED strategic work plan will guide prioritization.
- Committee discussion included concerns about the East Side business coordinator role and East Side services, BART Phase II impacts on small businesses, the economic data analyst position, business license and sales tax data quality, promotion of free legal services, and the disability access improvement grant. Juan Borelli reported that two grant applications had been completed, three were in process, and many businesses had inquired but not applied.
work2future Activities Annual Report
- Assistant Director Jeff Ruster, work2future Director Sangeeta Dural, San Jose Works Program Manager Ruby Carrasco, and intern Jacob Topete presented the annual report.
- work2future placed a total of 1,735 clients: 935 through WIOA and 800 through San Jose Works.
- WIOA: 555 adult and dislocated-worker placements and 380 young-adult placements; 82% of placements were in high-wage, high-growth occupations. The program is on track to serve 1,200 clients this fiscal year; 80% are BIPOC and 65% have multiple barriers to employment. Sector distribution was 28% business and accounting, 19% construction and trades, 17% healthcare, 16% advanced manufacturing, 13% information technology, and 7% other.
- San Jose Works: 375 subsidized and 425 unsubsidized placements; 100% of paid work experience participants were trained in high-wage, high-growth sector skills; 90% came through the Youth Empowerment Alliance, Parks and Recreation, or priority neighborhoods; and the completion rate was 93%. Highlights included an AI training initiative with East Side Union High School District placing 70 clients in paid internships with companies such as Roku and NVIDIA, a 25-participant in-custody pilot, six job fairs in low-resource neighborhoods, and follow-up showing 29 participants secured high-wage, high-growth jobs and 32 continued their education.
- Jacob Topete, a Mount Pleasant High School graduate, described how San Jose Works led to employment at JP Graphics and enrollment at San José State University. JP Graphics owner Joan Escobar spoke in support of the program, saying she has hosted multiple interns and urging the committee to fund the program big time.
- Committee discussion covered handoffs to other workforce programs, employer outreach, WIOA reauthorization, and the proposed increase in the training requirement from 30% to 50%. Staff said current training spending is about 30%, the change could be a medium-to-big deal, and it would likely take effect in FY 2026-2027.
Economic Development Activities Quarterly Status Report
- Public Information Manager Carlos Velasquez presented the verbal quarterly update on economic development activities.
- The office highlighted Black History Month and Women's History Month spotlights, noting that 7 of the 11 local business associations are led by women.
- Outreach for disability access improvement grants included presentations in Vietnamese and Spanish to small business communities.
- The AI startup incentive grant program offers up to $50,000 to early-stage AI startups; 80 applications had been received before the deadline, with grantees to be announced later in the summer.
- A ribbon cutting was held April 2 for Plug and Play's AI Center of Excellence in downtown San José. On April 11, staff joined a press conference for Nokia's new semiconductor fabrication facility, supported by a $93 million federal grant.
- Downtown progress included installation of 92 pedestrian and bike wayfinding signs, strong NVIDIA GTC attendance of 25,000, more than 13,000 dining visits at downtown restaurants (a 132% increase over the previous year's conference), and new downtown businesses such as Jackie's Place.
- Other items included the Okayama, Japan sister-city delegation, which is celebrating 70 years of the relationship in 2027, and a spring career fair with more than 60 employers and resource providers.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No public comment was offered on the work plan, the Business Development Division report, or the Economic Development quarterly report.
- Two speaker cards were submitted on the work2future item. Jacob Topete had already spoken as part of the presentation, and Joan Escobar, owner of JP Graphics, addressed the committee. She praised San Jose Works, described her experience hosting interns, and expressed strong support for continued funding of the program.
Key Outcomes
- The committee voted to approve the work plan review, including deferral of the Housing Balance Status Report to the May 19, 2025 CED meeting.
- The committee accepted the Business Development Division Activities Annual Report (CC 25-0651) by motion.
- The committee accepted the work2future Activities Annual Report (CC 25-0682) by motion.
- The committee accepted the Economic Development Activities Quarterly Status Report (CC 25-0673) by motion.
- Staff noted that a fifth objective requested for the OED strategic work plan would be addressed through a memo in the budget process.
Meeting Transcript
Yes, let's begin. It's 1 30. I like to start on time. As you all know, I say this every time we start a meeting. Welcome to the CED meeting. Could you take the roll, please? Casey? Okay. Here. Ortiz. Present. Vice Chair Kimmy. Here. Chair Foley? Here. You have a quorum. Great. Thank you. We uh the first item is to review the work plan on uh there's one item, the housing ballot status report is being deferred to May 19th to give time to present it to the HCD committee before it comes to us. Is there any members of the public who wish to speak on that on this item? No public comment. Okay, then do we have a motion to approve? Sorry. Any discussion? If not, let's vote. Thank you. Moving on to the reports to the committee. The first item is a business development division activities annual report. And I believe Blog A is going to kick this off. Good afternoon, Chair Foley and Committee members. The blog is the Lolich, Deputy Director in the Office of Economic Development and Cultural Affairs. And I am pleased to be here alongside Vic Farley, my colleague in the department, to present to you the annual activity report of the Business Development Division. Today we'll walk you through the breadth and range of work managed by the Business Development Division, focusing on key highlights over the past year, and also provide you with key goals for the year ahead. To successfully deliver this work relies on the support of colleagues across all city departments, and importantly the engagement of multiple external partners, stakeholders and contractors. The division is grouped into three teams. The first covers both small business and neighborhoods, and then we have our work in the corporate outreach and engagement with medium and large size companies, and finally our team leading the efforts for continued economic vitality and vibrancy in our city's urban core. I'd like to just briefly acknowledge the work of Nathan Donato Weinstein, our downtown manager, who as of yesterday actually took up the position as the first economic development manager for the city of Campbell. So we're sad about that. But he has led by example and has been instrumental in many of the successes across the division over the past year. In addition to our three teams, we have Carlos Velazquez, our public information officer, who leads all of OD OEDCA's communication work, and we are nearing the final stages of recruitment for economic data analyst position. Looking at the key numbers that highlight the city's economic vital signs, we can see that in 2024, our stock of businesses remain broadly the same. However, we did lose approximately 20,000 jobs, with the largest losses being in the professional scientific and technical services as well as manufacturing and retail. Nevertheless, unemployment remained roughly the same at 4%. This shows the turn in the labor market and the resilience of the Silicon Valley economy in keeping the resident workforce stable through change. Regarding real estate, we saw small reductions in office and retail vacancy rates. Industrial vacancy rates slightly increased, but we are also seeing significant new industrial development, and there continues to be strong demand for relatively limited amount of industrial space in the city. Consumer spending resulted in a record sales tax for restaurants. However, overall, there was a small dip of one percent, largely the result of declining EV car sales and lower gas prices. This was the first decline in sales tax in three years for the city. Business investment held up in 2024 and contributes a much more significant percentage of sales tax generated, close to 30% than in most other California jurisdictions.
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