Letters
Long Beach Bookings
This letter is to set the record straight regarding your Aug. 19 article, “Selling The Sites.” Long Beach is incorrectly listed with several other cities being criticized for or threatened with budget cuts by city officials due to “low booking numbers sales methods and expenses.”
No Long Beach city official has criticized or threatened to cut the Long Beach Area Convention & Visitors Bureau’s budget. Quite the opposite is true. Our city management has maintained our level of funding even though transient occupancy tax revenue is down from last year. They realize the positive impact the bureau makes and don’t wish to disrupt our activities due to the current economic challenges.
Unlike some of the other cities mentioned, our bureau does not consider a convention booking to be “definite” until a contract is signed with the convention center. Taking into account our new contractual guidelines, our “definite” room nights are projected to be up approximately 22% year to year. In addition, our “tentative” room nights for future years are up 49% year over year.
Stephen M. Goodling
President and CEO
Long Beach Area Convention & Visitors Bureau
Workplace Security
U.S. companies face numerous security issues in the 21st Century.
A lack of loyalty in the workforce, poor management practices and the impact of sociological factors have contributed significantly to an increase in workplace violence. We can expect cyber crime and instances of electronic theft, extortion, money laundering, virus infiltration, pornography, hackers engaged in business interruption, and organized crime engaged in credit card theft and identity fraud to increase exponentially with the continued growth of the Internet. Organized criminal activity from the Chinese Triads, Japanese Yakuza, Nigerian cell groups, and the Russian mafia, as well as our own home bred street gangs, will continue to impact the American business environment.
But the most serious security threat to U.S. business in the 21st Century is terrorism.
The most important lesson we learned from the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center is that we now must be proactive in our approach to security. The old adage, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” no longer applies.
To combat terrorism, businesses should:
n Open communication lines to federal, state, and local government law enforcement agencies to develop an intelligence network. The Orange County sheriff’s office has established the Private Sector Terrorist Response Group to interface with the business community to introduce their preparation techniques and plans, as well as to relay intelligence. The sheriff’s office acts as a conduit for communicating information from federal and other law enforcement agencies. PSTRG also holds regular meetings to discuss security risk and vulnerability assessments, contingency planning and emergency response plans.
n Support legislation such as the Patriot Act that gives law enforcement and intelligence agencies more freedom to guard our borders, track suspected subversives and protect our information systems and critical infrastructures.
n Initiate “security and risk vulnerability evaluations.” They are designed to assess the protection of people, proprietary information and data, products, and property and facilities and to develop specific recommendations to secure those entities. Businesses must hire effectively and perform background checks on all perspective employees, the first step in proactive security management.
n Implement those recommendations made in the security and risk vulnerability evaluations, paying particular attention to the development of security policies and procedures.
n Develop contingency and emergency plans in the event of an attack.
While many may view these recommendations as unnecessary invasions of, or limitations to, perceived “fundamental human rights,” we have already seen that there are a multitude of people in the world dedicated to destroying our way of life. Those who are law-abiding and act accordingly have nothing to fear,only the lawless and evil will be impeded by these security goals.
Ronald T. Williams
President & CEO
Talon Executive Services Inc.
Fountain Valley
