Santa Ana Is Good for Business

Orange County’s older cities have not had an easy time of it in recent decades. It hasn’t been only residents lighting out for new houses on plots of land that not long before were bean fields. Businesses also have pulled up stakes.

Santa Ana tried to keep old businesses and attract new ones by winning designation as a state “enterprise zone” five years ago. The city has done so well in the effort that it was just honored for having the top state-designated enterprise zone in the country. The 1998 Community Empowerment Award was given by two national associations devoted to community development and business.

Santa Ana’s enterprise zone covers a large chunk of geography, 7,000 acres zoned for commercial or industrial use. Businesses inside the borders can tell the city what workers they require and have the city tap its databases to help find them.

A business can get as much as $24,000 over five years in state income tax credits for each worker it hires through the program. Most employees referred to companies have lost other jobs or are collecting welfare. A firm also can get $1 million in sales-tax credits for purchasing machinery and parts.

The city benefits from the taxes paid by the companies, by its employees and by other firms the workers patronize inside Santa Ana’s borders: cleaners, restaurants, movie theaters and the like. It is also an asset to have property used. Vacant land and buildings can deteriorate quickly, becoming neighborhood eyesores and targets for vandals.

The designation of enterprise zone has not been enough to keep every business. The city suffered last year when Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics moved its television assembly operations to Mexico, a loss of nearly 400 jobs. Nearly two years ago, a garment manufacturer that once employed 2,000 workers moved to a new factory in Tijuana.

But the city rightly has wooed other businesses to occupy vacant buildings and has used the enterprise zone designation as a lure to keep existing firms. An estimated 10,000 companies are in the zone, but the number availing themselves of the program so far is in the hundreds. The city should continue promoting the availability of the enterprise zone and its tax breaks for businesses.