December President's Message
Monday, December 8, 2014
by: Kristin Howell, Meissner Jacquet Commercial Real Estate Services, BOMA San Diego President

Section: President's Message




What a year! BOMA San Diego’s Annual Winter Gala this past Saturday at the Estancia Hotel La Jolla was the perfect way to end the year – Amber Molina and the entire Special Events Committee did a phenomenal job and everyone had a great time!
 
It has been a great year to be your President – from the sold out luncheons in cool, “outside the box venues”; to the diverse educational offerings that have knocked it out of the park; and to the legislative victories. On the legislative front, it truly was a phenomenal year for BOMA San Diego’s Government Affairs Committee. We fought hard to protect our members and I sincerely appreciate all of your active participation. 
 
Involvement in revising the City of San Diego’s Climate Action Plan, securing a diverse and safe water supply for our region’s future, and cutting red tape at City Hall were just a few of the issues we tackled this year. While all of these were important, 2014 will forever be remembered as the year BOMA joined more than 50 other business organizations and private companies to lead a referendum campaign to overturn the linkage fee increase. 
 
You may recall that in December of last year, the San Diego City Council approved an increase that was estimated to cost the commercial construction industry more than $8 million annually in increased fees. On January 23rd we turned in 53,000 referendum petition signatures, on March 4th the City Council unanimously repealed the increase and on November 10th they adopted a compromise that BOMA helped fashion which protects our membership through exemptions and regulatory reform. 
 
While all of these were important, 2014 will forever be remembered as the year BOMA joined more than 50 other business organizations and private companies to lead a referendum campaign to overturn the linkage fee increase.

It was an unprecedented and monumental victory for BOMA San Diego. Thank you for all of your support and efforts.
 
With the year coming to a close, we have two people who will be rotating off the Board in 2015 and I would like to take a moment to thank them for their years of service on the Board – Sam Cadwallader with New Way Landscape and Tree Services and Lisa Lasho with ABM Industries Incorporated have worked tirelessly on the Board for the past several years. I sincerely appreciate their time and energy and can’t wait to see what they do with the “next generation” committee they will be working on! Details about that program will be available in early 2015.
 
I would like to add a special thank you to Audrey Doherty, Chelsey Tapie, and the team at Chemistry PR – I have enjoyed working with you and so appreciate all of your hard work behind the scenes. BOMA San Diego could not do any of what we do without you. 
 
I am looking forward to what 2015 has in store for BOMA San Diego. In late February, we will be participating in the pilot program for the Building Retuning “Train the Trainer” course being offered by BOMA International – one of two BOMA locals selected for the trial. We are working on an Asset Managers conference to be held locally, and are forming a committee dedicated to engaging the next generation of property managers. It’s going to be a great year!