Bob Scott succeeds Martin M. Cooper as Chairman of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association in 2006. In that position he has said that supporting job-creating industries and businesses will be a priority over his two-year term. He is director of the CivicCenter Group in Calabasas, a civic support and public policy company working in planning, research, analysis and consulting services provided primarily to non-profit groups. Scott is the founding chair of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, past president of the United Chambers of Commerce and a recipient of the Fernando Award for achievement and volunteerism in the San Fernando Valley. Question: How long have you been working in the Valley with the CivicCenter Group? Answer: The CivicCenter Group is an evolution of Scott and Associates. It became CivicCenter Group in about 1997, Scott and Associates was founded in about 1981. We did law and got more and more into special projects like planning issues, research, organizational issues and civic engagement kinds of things. Q: What are your priorities as the new chairman of VICA? A: Taking VICA back to its roots in assisting industry and commerce. As the name indicates we are the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, and we want to make sure that’s where our focus is. The area has been changing over the last couple of decades and we want to make sure that we’re more engaged in issues that make the Los Angeles area in general and the San Fernando Valley in particular more business friendly. We’re in a global economy and we have to compete with people all around the world. Q: What are the issues you feel that VICA needs to make a priority? A: Business taxation, regulation, workers’ compensation, infrastructure. Anything that someone can find a better version of someplace else. We were once upon a time one of the best places in the world to do business, and we’ve sort of lost that advantage. Q: Where are VICA’s strengths? A: VICA’s strengths are its ability to collaborate with leadership, both elected and corporate leadership. It pays proper respect to elected officials and they seem to respect VICA’s reasoned approach to things. In other words, we’re not just opposed to everything, but we think there’s a moderate solution to almost everything. Q: What do you think of the Neighborhood Council system now that it’s been up and running for a couple of years? A: VICA was a big supporter of charter reform, with the idea being to decentralize, where appropriate, government entities which includes the LA Unified School District and the City of Los Angeles. Charter reform as it ended up in the City of Los Angeles wasn’t to the degree or depth of effectiveness that we would have hoped for when we first went into this. With two charter reform commissions we still couldn’t get real neighborhood councils. Q: How effective have they been? A: I would never take away from neighborhood councils; I think they are a well-intended group doing the best they can. They may be at a level somewhat above the homeowners associations in terms of requiring the city to listen to what they say, so that’s a plus. But I think they still spend too much time with internal machinations than they do with engaging the city in a meaningful way. Q: How did you want the neighborhood councils to work? A: We had hoped for neighborhood councils that had budgetary power, not advisory power. We didn’t get it, and we still don’t have it. Unfortunately it may have taken some of the energy from the loyal opposition to the city because it kept people busy for a few years trying to sort out how the system’s supposed to work, who’s going to be elected. It’s kind of a dysfunctional concept the way it’s currently set up and whether or not it can ever be changed over is probably a constitutional question. Q: Your expertise and background is in planning, how should the Valley be envisioning its future? A: The big question is, ‘what is it that we see ourselves being in 10, 20, 30 years?’ Do we see ourselves absorbing our proportionate share of population growth? If we do, then we have to get used to the idea that we’re going to have to have higher density at some locations. The question then becomes one of, where does that higher density go and what shape does it take? The next question is how is that density served in terms of infrastructure, educational systems and its effect on the environment? How are we going to provide for transportation when our corridors like the 101 are operating at well beyond 100 percent of capacity? I really haven’t heard anybody take a look at the big picture and explain how it’s all going to work. Q: What do Valley leaders see as the region’s future? A: There are leaders who would argue that we need to densify, but that will not explain how we’re going to service the new density. Then there are people who say we need to absorb new population, but don’t take a stand on where and how that population will be accommodated. Until you look at the big picture and can explain your policy motives, we really can’t come to grips with the issues before us. Q: Joel Kotkin and others have said that the Valley leadership needs to rediscover itself, do you agree with that? A: I think everybody’s still reeling a bit from the secession thing. A lot of energy went into that whether you were for it or against it, it really was the high water mark for Valley politics. When that came and went I think a lot of the folks that were involved before that weren’t involved afterward. Some of the people who were involved were sufficiently chastened to run out and start another big battle. Q: The Valley is still losing manufacturing jobs and some people are worried about employment in the entertainment industry, can any new industries grab a foothold in the Valley? A: Well, there are still plenty of resources here; I think our industrial property is pretty well leased up. We don’t have any vast tracts of available space. We’re looking, in situations like the L.A. Times plant closing, to get viable manufacturing and industrial type jobs in that spot instead of getting some sort of self-serving retail, which could easily happen. We are concerned about that but as long as people are leasing properties as they become available and as long we can maintain quality jobs and occupations, we won’t be too worried. I do think we need to be diligent in attracting wealth-producing, community-friendly industries. That means people who are net exporters of goods and services, anybody who’s receiving money in exchange for sending goods and services outside this region. The goal would be to find people to bring wealth into the area; we’re basically in competition with the rest of the world. Q: L.A. and the Valley have started to grow a reputation as a hub for biomedical device companies. Can we work to bring more of those businesses to spaces like to L.A. Times plant? A: Absolutely, these are clean, community-friendly, well-paying careers in growth industries involved with technology and biotech. Not everybody can be Silicon Valley, but we do have some basis for making claims like that between the high tech industry and the entertainment industry and I think a lot of that is because of the education system in the region. We have everything from Cal Arts to Cal Tech in Pasadena to UCLA and USC, and Pepperdine. We have some of the finest educational institutions in the world, and that has the tendency to attract the work force we’re looking for, which in turn attracts the businesses we’re looking for. Q: Is increasing VICA’s membership a big priority for you? A: Yes, we’re at about 320 now. We want to continue doing what we do and do it better, we’re going to create a new position, vice president of advocacy. It’s something we haven’t had before, we’ve had people working in advocacy, but we’re trying to build on our capacity to speak out on behalf of the San Fernando Valley. What it takes to do that is more revenue, and more revenue is the product of increased membership. We’re going to try to take that up over 400 members in the next 24 months. Q: President and CEO Bonny Herman recently announced she’ll be leaving VICA, has there been any progress in the search for a new CEO? A: To be frank, we just had our first official discussion about it. We have put the word out that the search has begun, and we’ve already received some interest. Q: Would you prefer someone local? A: Not necessarily, but it doesn’t hurt to know the terrain. We’ve got 1.8 million people in the Valley, we should be able to find someone relatively local. Bob Scott Title: Chairman, Valley Industry and Commerce Association. Director, CivicCenter Group Born: 1946, Van Nuys Education: La Salle University, Chicago, LLB, 1980 Career Turning Point: “When I left the printing and advertising business and starting working in public policy and urban planning. Most Admired People: William Mulholland and Benjamin Franklin. Personal: Single, one daughter, Olivia.
