Posted on 04/13/2005 3:15:59 PM PDT by calcowgirl
San Diego was selected as one of four finalists in the competition to become home to California's new stem cell institute, but its proposal placed third in a preliminary ranking of the contenders.
A six-member team that reviewed 10 proposals submitted for the site of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine ranked San Francisco as the best location, followed by Sacramento, San Diego and Emeryville.
Although the ranking might not play into the final site selection, which is expected to be announced at a meeting May 6, San Diego's placement had local business boosters fuming.
"While we are delighted to have been selected as a finalist we are mystified by San Diego's rankings in certain categories," San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. President Julie Meier Wright wrote in a letter sent yesterday to Robert Klein, chairman of the committee that will oversee the institute.
"There is no other community that can match our concentration of biomedical personnel and research institutes, as we clearly noted in the proposal," Wright said.
The number of residents employed in life sciences and the number of research institutions were among the factors considered and weighed by the committee, which included three employees of the state Department of General Services and three employees of the institute.
The review team disqualified six cities' proposals, including those from Los Angeles and San Jose, for failing to meet the bid's requirements.
Today, a committee charged with selecting the best site and a runner-up is scheduled to hold the first of three meetings to discuss the proposals. It can accept, alter or ignore the assessment and analysis of the six-member team that whittled the applications down to the short list.
The meeting, which will be a teleconference conducted at sites across the state, is expected to be contentious. Representatives of the finalist cities and the disqualified ones are expected to lobby the site-search committee.
Proposition 71, the stem cell initiative, allocates $300 million annually to stem cell research over the next decade. Although the stem cell institute is expected to serve only as the headquarters for the 50 people who will administer the research grants, cities are clamoring to host it because of the prestige associated with the historic initiative.
San Diego's 60-plus-page proposal includes photos of 17,000 square feet of rent-free office space on Torrey Pines Road and the surrounding area, as well as maps showing the concentration of research institutes and biotechnology companies on Torrey Pines Mesa.
"We request that you not accept the scores offered by staff," Wright wrote in her letter to Klein. She further asked that the scoring system be fully explained to make the process transparent to the public.
The San Diego business boosters who put together the city's proposal are particularly upset with how their bid fared when judged on the number of life-science professionals living and working within 45 minutes of the proposed site and the number of academic and research institutions.
On a scale of zero to 25, San Diego scored 11 points when judged on the number of professionals working within 45 minutes of the site it proposed on Torrey Pines Road. San Francisco's proposal scored a 25. And Emeryville scored a 23.
Walter Barnes, an employee of the State Controller's Office temporarily assigned to work with the stem cell institute, said the review team used the number cited in each city's proposal.
San Francisco's proposal said 85,000 life-science professionals are employed within 45 minutes of its proposed site. San Diego's proposal said 39,000 life-science employees work within 45 minutes of its proposed site, which is across the street from Torrey Pines Golf Course.
But there were no guidelines issued listing what professionals could be counted in the tally. For instance, the bid guidelines do not say whether biomedical personnel can include hospital employees.
"If you cast your net wide enough, you can get a bigger number," Wright said in an interview last night.
Barnes said the review team did consider how far each city cast its net before scoring the proposals.
Wright said last night that when the site-selection committee was preparing to solicit proposals for the headquarters, it noted that the closer that the concentration of professionals worked to the proposed headquarters site, the better. However, she said, that doesn't seem to be reflected in the grading.
"Sixty-one percent of the industry professionals – approximately 24,000 people – are located within a four-mile radius of our proposed site," Wright said in her letter.
San Francisco's proposal said that the 25 companies located closest to its proposed headquarters site employ 18,190 people. It attributes the 85,000 professional number to Bay Bio, the area's biotech trade group.
Joe Panetta, president of the San Diego trade group Biocom, said he was surprised with how "generous" the review team was in judging the research institutions in San Francisco and Emeryville.
"It's pretty clear to those of us in biotech that when it comes to research, all studies show San Diego is out in front," Panetta said. The city's proposal lists 21 research facilities in the area.
Based on the enthusiasm of the cities that made proposals, which included everything from 10 years free rent to concert tickets and access to a private jet, Barnes said the review team expected there would be great disappointment when the findings were announced.
He also acknowledged that there has been speculation that San Francisco, or another city in the Bay Area, probably would be selected as host to the headquarters because the region has more biotechnology companies and venture capital and because Klein lives there.
However, Barnes said the review team included three state employees, not including himself.
"We went into a room by ourselves and ignored that and put forth the best decision we could make using objective information that was in the bids," Barnes said.
Before reaching a final decision, the site selection committee will visit each site and listen to a final sales pitch from the area teams.
"That's an opportunity to us to have a fresh start," said Biocom's Panetta. "We made a point in our proposal to talk about the community support and collaboration that San Diego's biotech community is known for. There doesn't seem to be anything in the grading to reflect that, so we look forward to the site visit as an opportunity to emphasize that quality."
The short list
A panel ranked the cities in the running to host the state's stem cell institute by awarding points (out of a possible 200).
How the contenders scored:
San Francisco 158
Sacramento 133
San Diego 116
Emeryville113
Terri Somers: (619) 293-2028; terri.somers@uniontrib.com
And who pays for all this generosity? First $3 Billion in taxpayer funds ($6 billion by the time the bonds are paid off), and now the cities sweeten the deal with more taxpayer funded bribes.
But are they corrupt enough? My vote is on SD. I think they had signs up on empty office buildings saying XYZ Stem-Cell Institute before this ever hit the ballot! LOL.
Well, I would think twice.
If this "institute's" function
is fetus growth and
"harvesting" stem cells,
then sooner or later God
will hurl down a ZOT
that Viking Kitties
themselves would be frightened of.
Pity the neighbors.
I had reason last year to make many trips to Green Hospital. It is right across the street from buildings on Torrey Pines Road (mentioned in article). Those "Institutes" have existed there for a while--with empty parking lots.
They seem able to find the money for a "living wage" requirement for city contractors that will drive up labor costs 2-3 million. And it's looking like they might let the city go through a special election to repeal the City Council's craven collapse on the Mt Soledad memorial cross; cost: 2 million.
The city streets are so pothole-riddled that it would be cheaper to scrape away the upper layer to make it level with the potholes, and yet they continue to find the money to flush down the toilet for everything BUT the routine functions of municipal government, like fixing roads.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.