May 7, 2013 – Long Beach recently released a draft version of the Mobility Element for the city’s General Plan. According to the city, the Mobility Element is designed to establish “an overview of the transportation infrastructure and multimodal strategies for the movement of people and goods.” It is not surprising that a place that is home to the nation’s second largest port includes the movement of goods in a discussion of mobility along with other topics more commonly addressed by general plans. These include passenger traffic, public transit, pedestrian-serving uses and bicycling.

But the role of cities and metropolitan regions in planning for freight mobility is taking on added significance given a lack of funding (and sometimes leadership) at the national level. Last year, the Brookings Institution – a D.C.-based think tank – and JPMorgan Chase launched a five-year Global Cities Initiative with the goals of helping U.S. regions become more competitive and expanding the global reach of their economies through, in part, manufacturing, exports, external investment and increased (and improved) freight flows. The chair of the project is former Chicago mayor Richard Daley.

May 7, 2013 – The leader of a Business Development (bus-dev) team has been frustrated for a year and a half . . . and counting.

Three years ago, his CEO announced a heartfelt goal: “Let’s triple topline results, double profitability and earn a 200 percent bonus in year five.” The goal was a stretch, but not out of reach. Fairly new, company sales had been strong and were getting stronger as familiarity with their product grew. Marketing efforts were focused on reinforcing and supporting sales. Return on Investment (ROI) was measured, and their overall strategies – with a few tweaks here and there as needed – were working.

May 7th, 2013 - Time management can be a way of avoiding the obvious. No one can manage time. Time just is. It flows like a river. But unlike a river, you can’t stop it or store it up. There is no dam to stop or store time. We live in a time/space continuum. Which means that time = life. Time and your life are one in the same.

So the real question is not: How do you manage time? The real question is: How do you manage your life? Once that reality is understood and embraced, progress can be made.

May 7th, 2013 – The Holy Grail of real estate legislation in California – Proposition 13 – is once again under attack. Although this is nothing new and these words have been written here before, this is the first real attack of the landmark 1978 voter-enacted legislation. The danger lies in that one of the two major political parties has the so-called Super Majority, the ability to do nearly anything it wants without the other party being able to do much unless legislators break ranks and do not vote along party lines.

The Democrats won enough seats in both houses of the state legislature last November to finally give them a super majority. Wanting to flex their muscles, Democrats have taken aim at one of their oldest targets – the tax breaks that property owners receive from Prop. 13.