Muenzer wants to make SBC staff business friendly
As the president of Muenzer’s Cyclery and Sports Center for the
past 20 years, Jerry Muenzer has experienced a lot with the
county.
He was involved with the Hollister Downtown Association downtown
clean-up after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. He has helped save
downtown buildings from demolition. And he has controlled a
business that has been in the community for 100 years, he
noted.
Muenzer wants to make SBC staff business friendly
As the president of Muenzer’s Cyclery and Sports Center for the past 20 years, Jerry Muenzer has experienced a lot with the county.
He was involved with the Hollister Downtown Association downtown clean-up after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. He has helped save downtown buildings from demolition. And he has controlled a business that has been in the community for 100 years, he noted.
Now, Muenzer wants to help the county on a larger scale, as the District 4 representative on the San Benito County Board of Supervisors. And he said he thinks his experience in business is exactly what the county needs.
Like a business, the county should treat the public as its customers, Muenzer said. That principle would carry over to bringing new business into the county, he said.
“We need to be business friendly, customer friendly and willing to work with people,” he said.
Communication between departments and the staff would be essential, he said.
“I feel it’s very important to give vision to the county administrative officer and tell how the employees should act,” he said. “Staff needs to be trained and given a vision of treating the general public as customers who pay their salary.”
The staff communication with the board needs to get better, he said.
“I really feel staff is getting mixed signals and the board needs to be consistent,” Muenzer said. “We need to show staff that we need them to support business coming in and stand behind them.”
That starts with fixing the old ordinances that prevent reasonable business growth.
“The county needs to re-look at all the ordinances about businesses coming in and address the ones that end up being roadblocks,” he said.
Doing so would help business growth and the job expansion that comes with it, he said.
But the county still needs to be careful about bringing businesses in that might leave suddenly, leaving the county with a clean-up, he said. The Solargen project in southern San Benito County is a project the county should be wary of, he said.
“I feel it is the responsibility of the county to make sure, through agreement, that the county is not responsible for any clean-up when the project runs its course,” he said. “We need to have a well-written developer agreement ahead of time, and the agreement must be enforced.”
The county also must work on promoting its few recreational activities, including the closed Clear Creek Management Area, he said.
The more publicity to the recreational activities, the more money the county brings in, he said, but the CCMA has become an example of what happens when one gets shut down, he said.
“It has economically affected the county and with the stroke of a pen, we have been adversely affected with no recourse,” Muenzer said.
In Muenzer’s opinion Clear Creek should be reopened to all use because he said there hasn’t been any proof of the asbestos damage to any individual in the area.
“Until they can show there is definitely a naturally reoccurring asbestos, it needs to be open,” he said. “If that falls on deaf ears at BLM (Bureau of Land Management) then it needs to go to Congressman (Sam) Farr, Senator (Barbara) Boxer and Senator (Dianne) Feinstein. We need to put pressure on elected officials to get involved.”
Opening a discussion about these matters and the budget are something Muenzer is ready to do, he said.
For Muenzer, it’s his abilities to balance a budget and be a part of a group discussion that he thinks make him an ideal candidate, he said.
His business expertise gives him “experience on how to work with other people,” and his eight years as a Tres Pinos School Board representative allow him to accept “no” as an answer, he said.
“You have to get other people to buy into your ideas when you’re on a board,” Muenzer said. “And you have to accept that and you can’t get bent out of shape when the vote doesn’t go your way. It takes collaboration to get things done.”
Jerry Muenzer
Age: 57
Occupation: President of Muenzer Inc.
Elected Political Experience: Tres Pinos School Board 1988-1996
