The Marin Economic Forum got a $150,000 matching grant from the county this week as its departing executive warned that the county is not immune to the drought.
The county board approved the grant amid news forum CEO Robert Eyler will step down this summer to take on new responsibilities at Sonoma State University, where he has been promoted to dean of international education. He will remain as an associate of the forum, serving as an economist.
Eyler told supervisors the biggest problem the Marin economy faces over the next year is the drought, which will wallop other regions in California, then have a ripple effect “permeating most parts of the state. … It will trickle upward toward higher income households” including those in Marin. One benefit, he added, will be innovations in “water-smart technologies.”
Marin single-family home prices jumped 3.4 percent in March as the county continues to deal with a supply and demand problem that’s causing bidding wars among buyers.
The median price of a Marin home in March was $987,000, compared with $955,000 in March 2014, and 218 homes sold in the county compared with 219 in the same month the year before, according to Irvine-based CoreLogic.
Marin County’s unemployment rate dipped to 3.5 percent in March, down from 3.7 percent in February, and remained the second lowest in the state, behind San Mateo at 3.4 percent.
Marin, which usually posts the lowest jobless rate among California counties, slipped into second place last January.
State officials estimated 4,900 people were looking for work in Marin last month, about 200 less than the month before.
Rob Eyler, CEO of the Marin Economic Forum and an economics professor at Sonoma State University, said, “If this happens, it’s not going to be an absolute shocker.”
Eyler said as BioMarin continues to grow, “There are going to be suitors that are going to sniff around for potential deals, especially given the size of their workforce, their proximity to the city and niche market in which they play.”
After using a slender blade to sever a beefy hunk of hindquarter, the butcher quickly separated sections of tenderloin and top sirloin for packaging, setting aside what would become New York strip steaks for further aging.
On a nearby table lay a slab of beef plate, or navel, which Marin Sun Farms owner David Evans described as similar to pork belly, from which comes bacon.
The plate “makes really great pastrami,” Evans said while standing in a Petaluma slaughterhouse that now doubles as an animal processing center and a “cut-and-wrap” butcher facility.
Marin’s economic growth over the next two years will likely outpace growth in the national economy; and the state’s drought isn’t expected to spoil the party, Sonoma State University economics professor Robert Eyler said Thursday.
Eyler, who heads the Marin Economic Forum, shared his 2015 economic forecast with about 50 people who attended the quarterly meeting of the Marin Business Forum at the Drake’s Landing Community Room in Greenbrae.
“California’s economic forecast has still not been adjusted for a drought yet,” Eyler said. “We’re still betting that the drought will be relatively low in its impact this year and potentially into next. We’ll see.”
In the novel “Lost Horizon,” the charmed denizens of Shangri-La live years longer than the normal lifespan, and in real world Marin County, most residents are similarly robust, according to new health rankings released Wednesday.
Most, but not all.
For the sixth year running, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute have ranked Marin as the healthiest county in California. This year, however, the rankings included a new measure that Marin did not perform so well on: income inequality. Marin ranked 54th out of 57 responding counties in income inequality.
NOVATO — A long-vacant single-tenant 32,500-square-foot office building is welcoming its first tenants in its new life as a multitenant facility.
Novato-based publishing company Crittenden Research leased 4,000 square feet and moved its 11 local employees to the building on Feb. 27. Noble Consultants, part of a large Louisiana-based engineering company, plans to relocate its Novato office into 2,800 square feet of the building in May.
“This building was vacant for a long time,” said Jeanne MacLeamy, Novato mayor, at the March 11 ribbon-cutting ceremony for the renovated building.
Marin County’s pension investments rocketed 18 percent last fiscal year, cutting the Civic Center’s pension debt by $125 million and shaving the tab mounted by San Rafael and other agencies enrolled in the retirement system.
At the same time, more conservative assumptions adopted by pension trustees who approved a new actuarial report this week mean that taxpayers will pay more next fiscal year to finance the program. Employees will pay slightly more as well.
New assumptions include an expectation investments will rise 7.25 percent a year, rather than 7.50 percent. Mortality rates have been revised because retirees are living longer.
Marin County’s unemployment rate rose to 4 percent in January as the county gave up its No. 1 ranking and slipped to the second lowest in the state, behind San Mateo at 3.9 percent.
The state Employment Development Department estimated 5,600 people were looking for work in Marin in January, about 700 more than the month before.
In December, the county’s unemployment rate checked in at 3.4 percent. A year ago in August, the rate was about 4.8 percent.
