Business View Magazine | December 2019

291 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2019 SAN PABLO, CAL I FORNI A happens through the Internet,” says Ching. “We’re a small city with a very modest demographic. For the larger companies like AT&T and Comcast, we are probably one of the communities lowest on their priority list in trying to get high-speed access. The City Manager took it upon himself to get the whole City wired, and to fund that as a city. We just bid the first phase of the Municipal Broadband Project. Construction should start by the end of this year. A couple of years from now, we hope to be able to provide everyone with gigabit speed to their household or business.” The common thread across these projects is that each reflects community-driven design, not only in terms of making services accessible for the residents of San Pablo, but also leveraging the creativity within its LMI community to help solve its own problems. “There’s an incredible amount of community engagement because this is about asking how we want to see ourselves, and what kinds of opportunities do we want to have,” says Choy. “The City has something very cool called the Youth Commission. The Youth Commission is about civic engagement. As we know, with poor communities, if you don’t find ways of giving meaningful voice to the youth, you lose them. They tend to move. The City’s been very conscientious about how it engages its youth. The Youth Commission meets with the City Council. They make recommendations at City Council meetings. They’re outspoken. They’re helping form policy.” As for the San Pablo EDC, they’ve learned from their predecessor’s forays into redevelopment and renewal. With smart planning and an eye towards the future, they’re valuing the local and building on the community that’s already there. “We’ve grown up,” says Choy. “We do New Markets Tax Credit programs. We do property management. We do asset acquisition. There’s so much that we do here, and we do it in partnership with the City and with outside agencies. We look outside to see what’s stable and growing, where it’s going, and then we try, as