Category Archives: Jobs

New Position Paper on the Potential for Green Jobs in Fremont

By Environment, Jobs, Manufacturing, NUMMI

I gave a speech on May 1st about NUMMI and the possibility of bringing green jobs to Fremont. The event was called “NUMMI 2010: A Tribute” and was held at the Clean Tech Institute in Fremont. The event brought together NUMMI workers and a number of representatives from the green technology sector. It was noticeable that there were no representatives from the City of Fremont at this event.

The full text of my speech, which I figure is good enough for a position paper on the subject, can be found here.

Council Gets Upset About the Public's Comments

By Jobs, Manufacturing, NUMMI

At the City Council meeting on Tuesday, April 13 a number of people made comments that were critical of the City’s handling of the NUMMI closure. Matt Artz posted on his blog that it was “Bacon Vs. the Council“. The discussion is pretty interesting. With the exception of a couple of people, the sentiment in the comments is well behind me. First, people are correct to point out that the Council is saying I said “The City did nothing to save NUMMI” when that’s not what I said. Secondly, people are noting that Council didn’t do much to save NUMMI, nor did they do a good job deciding what should be done next.

Just for the record, here is the full text of what I said:

Read the rest of this entry

City of Fremont Starts a Poll on What to do with NUMMI

By Development, Jobs, NUMMI

The City of Fremont has recently started a poll on what should be done with the NUMMI property.  It can be found here.

Before asking a single question the survey takes you through four pages of explanatory text.  One of the lines that caught me here is “create new jobs as quickly as possible”.  This may sound appealing but it implies that we might want to settle for poorer-quality jobs as opposed to waiting for better opportunities.  While the loss of NUMMI’s jobs are significant, we should strive for living-wage jobs as opposed to just getting jobs quickly.

Read the rest of this entry

Suggestion to Manufacture High-Speed Rail Cars in Fremont

By 2 commentsJobs, NUMMI, Transportation

Last December, Quentin Kopp floated the idea of the NUMMI plant being re-purposed as a manufacturing facility for high-speed rail cars.  I think this is an excellent idea, the kind of idea that our City should be pursuing.  Yet the City was silent when this idea was raised.

I have vigorously argued that we need to maintain this area a job-producing site, specifically middle-class living-wage jobs as was provided by the NUMMI facility.  Between housing, retail and jobs, the latter is the most important item that we need to turn our City’s economy around.

Read the rest of this entry

Manufacturing Jobs Vital for the Middle Class

By Jobs, NUMMI

In a recent Business Week article Vice President Joe Biden pointed out how that manufacturing jobs are essential to support a vibrant middle class. I wholeheartedly agree with this. That’s one reason why I believe that we should keep the NUMMI site for manufacturing.

There was a recent post on the Tri-City Beat about how the NUMMI site is a developer’s dream site. The obvious question to ask from this is should the City of Fremont do what is best for the developers or what is best for the city at large? I believe that we should preserve this site for manufacturing jobs, even if it will take a while to provide anything close to the number of jobs that NUMMI provided.