Valley Industry & Commerce Association |
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- Event Recap: 15th Annual Hall of Fame
- VICA Honors Juneteenth
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VICA International Affairs Roundtable
- VICA Victory: CEQA Expansion Bill Fails
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“Juneteenth has never been a celebration of victory or an acceptance of the way things are. It’s a celebration of progress. It’s an affirmation that despite the most painful parts of our history, change is possible—and there is still so much work to do.” |
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Former President Barack Obama |
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15th Annual VICA Hall of Fame - Thank You for Joining |
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Presenting Sponsor Tim Gaspar (Gaspar Insurance), 2022 Inductees (from left to right) Mike Quiroge (Mike’s Roofing & Building), Roland Williams (Los Angeles Rams), Leela Kapur (Valley Village), Mario Romero (Sagebrush Cantina), and Gerald Denni (Sunkist), and VICA Chair Victor Berrellez (US Bank). |
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VICA celebrated with businesses and community leaders during its 15th Annual San Fernando Valley Business Hall of Fame Dinner on Friday, June 10th.
Five businesses were inducted as we honored them for their active involvement in growing the communities they serve. This year’s inductees were: the Los Angeles Rams; Mike’s Roofing & Building; Sagebrush Cantina; Sunkist; and Valley Village. The event was presented by Gaspar Insurance Services and co-sponsored by Cowe Consulting, Los Angeles Daily News, Southwest, and US Bank.
The inductees join an elite and diverse group of past honorees. Attendees also had the opportunity to take a photo with the Lombardi Trophy, courtesy of the Los Angeles Rams, from Super Bowl XXXIV. The event was held at the Sheraton Universal Hotel.
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Presenting Sponsor Tim Gaspar (Gaspar Insurance and VICA President Stuart Waldman with the Lombardi Trophy. |
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Valley Village team honored as one of VICA's 2022 Hall of Fame Inductees. |
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Attendees participate as each of the 2022 Hall of Fame Inductees are honored. |
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Bob Rodine (The Polaris Group), Jill Banks Barad-Hopkins (LADWP), Ross Hopkins (Ross B. Hopkins & Associates), and Kay Rodine. |
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VICA is pleased to honor Juneteenth as an official holiday, to commemorate the end of slavery in all of the US. Our team will use this time to reflect and honor the importance of this day. Please click here to find a list of events around the Valley that you can participate in to celebrate Juneteenth.
The VICA office will be closed on Monday, June 18.
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VICA International Affairs Roundtable |
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VICA is pleased to host Ambassador Marcela Celorio, Consul General of Mexico in Los Angeles, and Debbie Adler, CEO of Global LA, for an International Affairs Roundtable. Details as follows:
Tuesday, June 21 | Noon
VICA Office
Registration is required.
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The Consul General will share a concept she’s coined in her years of experience as Consul General in US (San Diego and LA), Cross Border Diplomacy, and how that concept works in terms of fostering business.
Born in Mexico City, she holds a J.D. from the Escuela Libre de Derecho and has two master´s degrees, one in diplomatic studies from the Instituto Matias Romero (IMR) and the second, in defense and national security from the Colegio de la Defensa Nacional at the Secretary of National Defense (SEDENA).
Proposed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, she was ratified as Consul General of Mexico in Los Angeles by the Senate and took office on June 24, 2019. Her diplomatic work has been characterized by her commitment to achieving a dialogue between cultures. In this regard, since being appointed in Los Angeles, she has fostered an intergenerational and intercultural understanding between Mexicans, Mexican Americans and Americans of all cultures.
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Debbie Adler currently serves as the President and CEO of GLOBAL LA - a public-private partnership to secure international business to Los Angeles and increase the prosperity and resiliency of the greater LA region.
Previously, she was a leader within the UK government’s Department for International Trade (DIT) as the North America Sector Director for the ‘Creative, Media and Sports Economy’ team. Debbie worked with both British companies that are expanding into the US and Canada and with US and Canadian companies that wish to open offices in the UK and/or acquire the goods and services of UK businesses. She led a team of 15 based across eight cities.
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VICA Victory: Bill Looking to Expand CEQA Fails |
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On Tuesday, Assemblymember Christina Garcia announced that she will be pulling Assembly Bill 1001 from committee.
The bill would have effectively been a housing and private development mitigation tool by putting limitations on local zoning. It would have put up new legal barriers for local agencies to contend with by creating new guidelines that would have further slowed the development of new housing.
VICA's advocacy efforts presented to elected officials the negative effects of the bill. While VICA supports the continuance of environmental justice throughout California, AB 1001 would not have been a proper path to take when considering the gravity of California’s housing crisis.
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Advocacy in Action - Taxation, Hotel Workers, & Healthcare |
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VICA's Legislative team continues to advocate for a better San Fernando Valley. Take a look below at the action taken this week.
Los Angeles City Council
VICA was present at this past Tuesday's LA City Council meeting to testify against a potential ballot measure, which would raise taxes on all residential housing, including apartment buildings, and every commercial property in the City of Los Angeles. These new taxes will simply be passed on to renters and businesses. This measure would result in the City of LA funding and building housing for the rest of the County and region. Nothing in this measure will reduce the high cost of Permanent Supportive Housing and may actually result in increased acquisition and constructions costs for new housing. It is not our residents and small businesses that should bear the entire cost that should be spread out throughout the County.
Los Angeles Rules, Election, and Intergovernmental Relations Committee
The VICA Legislative team also called into the City's Rules & Elections committee on Thursday for both Workplace Security, Workload, Wage, and Retention Measures for Hotel Workers and Minimum Wage for Employees Working at Healthcare Facilities. Both initiatives have qualified to be on the November ballot, but the City Council is discussing a potential ordinance for each, rather than allow Angelinos to decide.
Hotel Works Initiative:
This initiative will will set forth provisions on daily housekeeping, square footage limits on daily cleaning, and many of the other provisions. This ordinance truly cripples hotels who have fought to remain open or who reopened during the pandemic. Spikes in labor costs could cause other hotels to follow suit in either foreclosure or permanent closure.
California is already suffering a major water drought. The Ordinance requires for daily housekeeping during a guests stay, which will negatively impact the environment. Currently, hotel guests may opt out of housekeeping throughout the duration of their stay and are rewarded with bonus points in their program or a financial incentive. This Ordinance removes the provision and requires staff to enter each room each day for housekeeping.
Though the Ordinance requires daily housekeeping in all rooms, it effectively prevents hotels from paying an employee overtime. This will force a limitation on income, require hotels to hire more staff, which will result in hours lost for current employees.
Lastly, this proposal has not been evaluated for long-term economic impacts to the Transient Occupancy Tax, and thus, City General Funds. Other cities that passed similar proposals saw a dramatic decrease in their TOT revenue following implementation.
Healthcare Facilities Minimum Wage Initiative:
If passed, this ordinance would raise the minimum wage for workers at healthcare facilities to $25 per hour with annual adjustments based on the Consumer Price Index in 2024 and every year thereafter. The measure would have significant negative impacts to our membership and our local economy, particularly the ability of local healthcare providers, from our biggest hospitals to local community clinics, to adequately serve Los Angeles residents.
This arbitrary minimum wage increase would put accessible and affordable healthcare at risk at the worst possible time. Indeed, healthcare workers are heroes and have been essential to our recovery from COVID-19. In recognition to this, providers across the country have given increased benefits where financially possible and put the health and safety of their workers above all else.
The increases will financially devastate the healthcare industry, and thus those most in need of services, as costs will inevitably be passed to patients. Also, the vast majority of health care workers throughout the City of Los Angeles are excluded by the measure.
VICA is in full opposition of all three initiatives and will continue to monitor the situation.
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Click the images to learn more and apply today! |
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VICA Thanks Our Renewing Members |
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President's Circle:
Bronze Members:
Members:
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Leaders Forum with Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins
New Date
Friday, July 29 | 8:30 AM
Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport
Stephanie Wiggins, Deputy Chief Executive Officer for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), most recently served as Executive Director of Vendor/Contract Management for Metro. She has more than 20 years of experience working for transportation agencies.
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VICA After Dark: LAFD Chief Kristen Crowley
Wednesday, August 31 | 5:30 PM
FIVE on the Hill
VICA After Dark is a regular evening reception designed to give VICA members and guests the opportunity to hear updates about policies impacting the business community from a featured opinion leader and network with other prominent business leaders from the community.
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International Affairs
Committee Meeting
Tuesday, June 21
12:00 - 1:30 PM
VICA Office
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Transportation Committee Meeting
Tuesday, July 12
8:30 - 10:30 AM
Hosted at The Garland
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Government Affairs Committee Meeting
Wednesday, July 20
12:00 - 2:00 PM
VICA Office
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Not-For-Profit Matchmaking
Wednesday, July 13
5:30 - 7:30 PM
Hosted at New Horizons
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US Chamber of Commerce | June 14
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2026 World Cup
SoFi Stadium in Inglewood has been selected as a 2026 World Cup venue, FIFA announced Thursday. SoFi Stadium staged the Super Bowl in February and has long been a favorite of FIFA officials despite the fact the artificial turf field is too narrow to accommodate a World Cup pitch. Changes will need to be made to the field in order to accommodate a World Cup match.
Stock Market
Markets worldwide are back to tumbling on Thursday, and a wipeout on Wall Street has stocks down nearly 4% as worries about a fragile economy roar back to the fore. The S&P 500 was 3.9% lower in afternoon trading, more than reversing its blip of a 1.5% rally from a day before. Analysts had warned of more big swings given deep uncertainties about whether the Federal Reserve and other central banks can tiptoe the narrow path of hiking interest rates enough to get inflation under control but not so much that they cause a recession.
Transit
During a virtual community meeting on Wednesday, June 15, Metro staff revealed a new “network option” that would add bus-only lanes to Roscoe Boulevard between Lankershim and Topanga Canyon boulevards during weekday peak hours. No bus-only lanes are planned for Nordhoff, said Joe Forgiarini, Metro senior executive officer for operations.
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MLB All Star
For the first time since 1980, the All-Star game is headed to Dodger Stadium. And with the Dodgers as the perennial league leaders in attendance, season-ticket holders already have spoken for many of the seats at Dodger Stadium. That combination of supply and demand — limited supply and pent-up demand — is reflected in the price of available tickets for the July 19 game.
Ballot Measure on Tax Sales
Los Angeles voters in November will be asked whether Angelenos who sell property worth more than $5 million should pay higher taxes, with those proceeds going to programs that proponents say will create affordable housing and prevent homelessness. The proposed tax ordinance is backed by Unite to House L.A., a coalition of affordable housing, homeless services and labor groups who bill it as a measure to impose a “one-time fee” on millionaires and billionaires. The Los Angeles City Council voted 14-0 to place it on the ballot.
LA County Elections
The race to become the 43rd mayor of Los Angeles will be decided in a November runoff, with Congresswoman Karen Bass and developer Rick Caruso far ahead of the pack in returns reported June 14 by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder. Bass has pulled ahead with 41.05% and Caruso 38.29%.The Los Angeles city attorney’s race is also headed to a November runoff, with civil rights attorney Faisal Gill, prosecutor Marina Torres, attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto and deputy city attorney Richard Kim competing for the top-two spots. The four leading candidates have changed positions during vote-counting.
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Are you interested in a Membership Spotlight?
Answer the below questions, send responses and a professional photo,
and we'll ensure your in the line up for 2022!
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MUST BE A CURRENT VICA MEMBER TO BE FEATURED!
Please keep each question response to 2-4 sentences maximum.
- Please share a bit about your background and a fun fact that people would love to learn, ie: scrapbooking is your favorite hobby, you were in a band, you have traveled around the world…
- What has been your organization’s largest accomplishment or efforts made over the past year?
- Please share how VICA has supported your business strategy or expanded your footprint with the business community?
Send responses and headshot to Peter Warda
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Member Messages
Get Your Message in VICA Weekly!
VICA members can promote their business, events and news in VICA Weekly. Member messages are available for $50 per week or $175 for four weeks. Messages are text-based and may not contain more than 70 words. A logo may be added for an additional $5 per week. For more information or to schedule your member message, contact cathy@vica.com or call (818) 817-0545.
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ABOUT VICA
Presenting the business perspective on behalf of employers in the
San Fernando Valley cities of Los Angeles, Burbank, Glendale, Calabasas,
Hidden Hills, San Fernando and Santa Clarita.
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