(October19)  Marc Steinorth is seeking a position on the city council after living for a dozen years in Rancho Cucamonga, he says, because “I think the city council really needs a business perspective. My experience in attracting businesses, making them sustainable and growing businesses is something this city needs.”
According to Steinorth, Rancho Cucamonga used to rely on its redevelopment agency for growth. But with the redevelopment agency’s dissolution, the city needs a new approach and new perspectives to continue the community’s growth and recovery.
“The redevelopment agency was what created the city’s most successful offerings, like the James L. Brulte Senior Center and Victoria Gardens. With the loss of the redevelopment agency, it is now more dependent than ever before on having businesses flourish. New businesses and better businesses bring in sales tax revenue. Without new ideas and innovative planning, our city is going to stagnate. I believe my experience developing and growing businesses is what the city needs at this time.”
But, according to Steinorth, the city’s first task must be addressing financial difficulties.
“Our focus has to be on the financial welfare of the city,” said Steinnorth. “All of the city’s departments are suffering. State pass-through money is drying-up, as are grants. Funding for the senior center is woefully inadequate. When the city tells more than half of its residents that their only choice is to either agree to raise the assessments in their landscape maintenance districts or the city will decommission the district and walk away from its landscaping, you know things are bad. They are willing to allow millions of dollars in trees and plants to just die; then you know we have a problem.”
Instead, Steinorth offered his solution.
“This shows how my business experience would be of help to the city,” said Steinorth.“This is a matter of business management. When you are dealing with outside vendors, you need to go and renegotiate those contracts or bid them. In this economy, there are plenty of vendors who will make that process more competitive and affordable for the city. Re-examining contracts and expenses is how you achieve accountability.
“City staff are fine and qualified people, but you are just not going to get the best value for the money being spent until you hold the people paying their bills accountable,” Steinorth continued. “They will not be as hardnosed in negotiating prices as they would be if they were being held accountable or were hiring someone to do the gardening or landscaping in their own yard and paying them with their own money.”
Getting the best deal requires a business mentality and accountability, said Steinorth.
“We cannot be wasting our financial resources.”
Steinorth said the city’s leadership has historically done well in building a quality community. But a new era has dawned, he said, and a new guard must take over from the old to move the city ahead.
“In running, I am challenging our current city leaders,” Steinorth said. “If you look at our current civic leaders, they go back for twenty years or more. They have been around and in office longer than our newest voters have been alive. I think it is time the torch was passed to younger people with experience, gifted people who are committed to the community and are willing to contribute.”
Steinorth said that this election gives voters the opportunity to engage the coming generation.
“For two decades we have had the same people running the city. I am not saying they were not right for their time. The economy is constantly updating itself and evolving. For the city to stay up with the rate of change, you need a civic leadership that fully understands what that change is, what it means, and what is going on.”
Steinorth cited accessibility as an example of the difference between the upcoming and the entrenched generations.
“My electioneering material includes my cell phone number on it,” said Steinorth. “I have gotten literally hundreds of phone calls from people saying they can’t believe I answered the phone. They say they have been trying to reach our current civic leaders for years and haven’t gotten through.”
Those he’s heard from include businesses and people who have permits pending at City Hall. In many cases, he says people have to hire consultants to get their permits through engineering and the community development department
“If businesses have to spend that kind of money just to reach members of the city council, the average citizen doesn’t stand a chance. And that is unacceptable,“ he said. “We should be holding our elected leaders to the highest standard of accessibility. They should be responsive to those that elected them. They are the ones ultimately responsible for the city’s policies. They should know what is going on in the city. They should see what their constituents want and need and they should not be constantly referring the people they represent to staff.”
Steinorth said that the best solution that the city could embrace is new leadership.
“The solution to what is bedeviling this city is leadership that views the issues from all sides with intellectual honesty and does not pander to one special interest group or another,” he said. “There are so many issues going on in this city. Being a city council member has to be a bigger job than just showing up at City Hall on the first and third Wednesday of the month.”
Enlarging on that point, Steinorth said, “Intelligent people with independent thought applying logic to resolve the issues will strengthen our city. We have everything necessary to resolve our problems.”
Steinorth pointed to the city’s excellent and well-trained work force, education facilities, and very good infrastructure as resources available to continue improvement in the city.
“We need to overcome the problems we face now by bringing in businesses. Our council members have to realize that by bringing in businesses, we will create a rising tide of opportunity and wealth. If we have more jobs, we have more people spending money, more sales tax revenue, and more than enough money to pay for police and fire services, recreation amenities, services for our senior citizens. Our public employee unions will not need to worry about people being laid off. If we have economic success in the private sector, the public sector’s condition will follow.”
Without the redevelopment agency to continue driving growth and transforming blighted and undeveloped areas, Steinorth said it falls to the city and its residents to continue that mission.
“Rancho Cucamonga did a good job of developing what was undeveloped,” he said. “We are to the point where we do not really need to create more, but what we need to do now is fill in what we have. If we bring in businesses, we will bring in residents, who will then become a factor in growing the economy. More workers mean more buyers for empty homes, improving our real estate market. Similarly, other issues can be resolved as the economy improves. We need to maximize what we have and I think that new blood  can do a better job than those who are running the city now.”
Citing some of his efforts as a private citizen, Steinorth said that he has been out in the community already.
“You do not need a title to go out there and make a difference and I have not been waiting around,” said Steinorth. “I have been extremely active in the community, essentially rebuilding the Lincoln Club. I have been raising money for the senior center. I have gone from organization to organization trying to build a network for the city. I am advocating volunteerism in promoting the city to bring in more business and take up the slack from our loss of the redevelopment agency.”
Steinorth continued. “The council could do more,” he said. “Its members have been focused lately on lowering the hurdles for businesses. They should be focused on eliminating those hurdles.”
Steinorth said he is qualified to serve on the city council because of his experiences in the private sector.
“For over 20 years, I have marketed and proved myself,” he said. “Through that work, I have built a network that has helped me keep my hand on the pulse of the community. Frankly, I care more about this community, and I am already more accessible than those now on the city council.
“I believe the current council has shown some improvement in the last year,” Steinorth acknowledged. “They have discontinued using reserve funds to balance the budget and have reduced the size of government instead.”
But Steinorth said the council slipped backward when it promoted three fire inspectors to captain. “When you lay off foot soldiers, you don’t promote more generals,” he said. “They still don’t seem to have their priorities where their priorities need to be.”
In his assessment of Rancho Cucamonga, Steinorth said, “I see needs. I see vacuums.And my instinct is to try to fill them.”
As to why he should receive his fellow citizens’ votes, Steinorth said, “I think I will be of benefit to the city because I offer an independent perspective. I am not tied to any group. I am an independent businessman with excellent business credentials. I believe I offer the sort of forward thinking that is needed in the city for the years to come.”
Steinorth attended Ramstein American High School at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany while his father was in the military. He then attended the University of Maryland in Munich and obtained his bachelors degree in political science from the University of California at Riverside. He has lived in Rancho Cucamonga for twelve years. Married, he has two children. He owns a full service advertising agency based in Rancho Cucamonga that specializes in print, radio and television media. He is married with two children.