Advocate Pushes Coordination : Small Businesses Get a Voice in Sacramento

Small business is vitally important to California’s economy and yet for years has had no single voice in Sacramento--that is, until now--says California’s first small-business advocate.

“Legislators are renowned for giving the appearance of support of small business, but, when you look at their voting records, you see something entirely different,” said Oscar Wright, who was appointed state small-business advocate in October by Gov. George Deukmejian.

“But I’m fond of saying: ‘Don’t blame the dynamite if you can’t light the fuse.’ We need to light the fuse of small business,” Wright told a meeting this week in Los Angeles of the National Federation of Independent Business, the nation’s largest association of small-business owners.

Describes His Role

Wright in an interview described his new position as “chief lobbyist, chief spokesman, chief ombudsman for small business in California.” About half the states have either a small-business advocate or some office that fills that role, he said.

California offers as many as 15 programs to assist small companies, but the programs are scattered among several agencies and aren’t coordinated in any way, said Wright, who previously headed one of those programs, the state Office of Small Business.

“We have come a long way from previous years in terms of support services that we offer small business,” Wright said. “But we don’t always talk to each other. We don’t always know what the left and right hands are doing.”

Wright said Gov. Deukmejian has approved his plan to establish a California Small Business Round-table within the next 45 days that will be made up of representatives of the state’s various small-business programs.

“The name of the game is access; access to resources,” Wright said in an interview. “I’m not convinced that we need any more small-business programs. What we need is better coordination.”

To find out what is on the minds of small-business owners, the state will sponsor one-day conferences in different regions, Wright said.

No ‘Ivory Tower Bureaucrat’

The first conference is scheduled for September in Sacramento.

“I don’t intend to be an ivory tower bureaucrat,” Wright said. “I intend to listen and learn.”

Wright said he will be a direct link between small businesses and the governor, the Legislature and the California Small Business Roundtable. “What is lacking in Sacramento is the political clout of small business,” Wright said. “One of the first things I want to do is send a message to the governor, as well as the Legislature, that we’re not only going to develop a common-sense agenda for small business . . . but also a political agenda.”

Wright, a conservative Republican who ran against Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) for the state Senate in the 28th District in 1982, said he isn’t talking about partisan politics but about making sure that small-business issues are discussed in the political arena.

“Small business is not partisan,” Wright said. “They’re looking for solutions, not partisan game-playing.”

An important part of his job, Wright said, will be to monitor and lobby the state Legislature about small-business issues and then push to see that regulations are actively enforced.

“You need some eyes for small business in Sacramento,” Wright said. “Small-business people don’t have time to monitor that process, they’re too busy worrying about cash flow.”

Wright said his plans include proposing a small-business hot line so that business owners will have one place to call for information on the state’s many programs. A definition of small business, perhaps varying from industry to industry, also must be developed, he said.

Wright said that his ultimate objective “is to put myself out of a job, if you base that on the premise that my job is to sensitize the bureaucracy to the role and problems of small business.”