Angels Chairman Gives Pep Talk to Murrieta Business Owners

By Michael Loeschnig

Orange County business leaders including Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Chairman Dennis Kuhl traveled to Murrieta City Hall Monday afternoon to offer insight to city officials and small business owners.

Murrieta Mayor Alan Long heads up Murrieta City Council's newly-formed Small Business Advisory Sub-Committee, and invited the executives to speak to the group.

Other guest speakers included: Lacy Kelly, CEO at Association of California Cities-Orange County; Richard Porras, regional vice president at AT&T; Maureen Hays, senior vice president /regional development executive at The Parsons Corporation; Dave Stephanides, director of governmental affairs at Orange County Board of Realtors (via conference call); and Robert Sausedo, vice president at PsomasFMG.

The main goal of having them, according to Long, was to “help guide and direct the City of Murrieta to create partnerships such as those in Orange County between business and local government."

Roughly two dozen local businesses, including Rabobank and The Mill Restaurant, were in attendance.

"This meeting was to bring in some outside sources to share their stories with these folks," Long said. "There was a lot of good information and suggestions on how they can get involved."

Kuhl spoke about his experiences when working with government officials for regulatory reforms in order to make improvements to Angel Stadium. He then took questions from Murrieta businesses. 

Porras spoke of his governmental relations on behalf of AT&T, taking time to converse with the audience.

The meeting agenda also focused on three main questions for the city: 1. “What are we doing wrong?” 2. “What are we doing well?” 3. “What can we do better?”

Long said that while the City continues to work on attracting new businesses, it also needs to pay attention to its existing ones.

"We need to do more than allow businesses three minutes at a council meeting on what we can do to help their businesses," Long said. "This is an accountability check that we are doing everything possible to help because the more successful they are, the more jobs they are going to provide."