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Politics & Government

Letter to the Editor: Why SM Businesses Should Hire Local

Here's a good way the community could be thanked for buying local.

Recently, there was a spirited discussion on the merits of and supporting Santa Monica businesses to preserve the vitality of our community.

I am wondering if the local businesses might consider returning the favor by hiring locally. We all know how strained our economy remains and that California still has a very high unemployment rate.

If local employers would be willing to give just a small edge to folks who already live in Santa Monica, there are some benefits to be reaped:

1. Those who still have their homes might not be aware of this, but foreclosures do happen in Santa Monica. By hiring someone local, a foreclosure—and subsequent loss of property-tax revenue—could be avoided.

2. Unemployment also happens to people in Santa Monica. Unemployed people tend to hang on to what little money they have. Whereas the gainfully employed would be more than happy to buy local, thereby helping to generate some of that revenue the city hopes to gain with the recent .

3. Living and working in the same community promotes commuting by foot, bicycle or bus rather than by gas-guzzling. The suggestion here is not by any stretch to hire an unqualified individual simply because they live here. The idea is simply to treat qualified locals as a protected category much as the Federal Equal Opportunity Act protects people on other criteria such as race, gender, age, etc. And it might be a great boost to our local economy if the many large corporations whose offices are located here could be encouraged to think local when it comes to hiring practices.

I would be curious to see if the same parties who so staunchly seek to protect the community in ways such as would be willing to take that mindset to the next level.

I'm not crazy. Just tired of being unemployed.

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