Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce
Our mission is to advance the economic vitality of greater Irvine.
Our mission is to advance the economic vitality of greater Irvine.
The Cove, the University of California-Irvine’s tech facility and office space that is home to the school’s Applied Innovation business and entrepreneur incubator program, is gearing up to expand its presence in Orange County’s startup scene. UCI Applied Innovation this month told the Business Journal that it had put the finishing touches on a new lease that will nearly double the Cove’s square footage at UCI Research Park, a 36-building business park next to the university that’s run by Newport Beach-based Irvine Co. Applied Innovation currently occupies about 46,000 square feet of space at UCI Research Park; its new home will run 84,000 square feet, taking up nearly all of a three-story office at 5270 California Ave. that was last used by chipmaker Broadcom Inc. The relocation is planned for later this year. Applied Innovation, the university’s center of gravity for startups, will have a notable partner at the new facility; a multimillion-dollar wet lab incubator space run by the Beall Family Foundation. The Newport Beach-based foundation helped launch the Cove in 2014 with a $5 million gift to speed the “transfer of technology … and discoveries to the marketplace.” Quick Growth This is the third expansion for Applied Innovation since it launched in 2014 as the...
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California Chamber of Commerce Policy Advocate Sarah Boot will address the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee at an informational hearing to discuss the rights, protections and obligations established by the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). California Consumer Privacy Act The CCPA is a sweeping privacy law that applies to businesses of all sizes across almost every industry. It was rushed through the legislative process in the summer of 2018 without the benefit of input from numerous crucial stakeholders. As a result, the law is deeply flawed. Many of the CCPA’s provisions are simply unworkable in practice or will result in numerous unintended consequences. At the end of the 2018 session, the Governor signed SB 1121, a bill fixing a handful of the CCPA’s problems. However, many more fixes are needed before this law goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2020. Who Has Rights Under CCPA? The CCPA defines a “consumer” as “a natural person who is a California resident.” Thus, a “consumer” need not have a customer relationship with a business in order to exercise rights under the CCPA. What Rights Did CCPA Create? The CCPA provides consumers with the following privacy rights to be enforced by the Attorney General: The right to know the categories...
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Gov. Gavin Newsom’s hopes for a record-setting tax revenue windfall this year could depend on whether California’s wealthiest residents are simply waiting until the last moment to pay up — a reaction to the 2017 federal tax changes championed by President Trump. State financial experts reported fiscal year-to-date revenues are more than $2.3 billion below the expectations set by Newsom’s first spending plan. But they believe the money is simply delayed, not missing. “We don’t think it reflects any underlying weakness in the economy,” said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the California Department of Finance. Instead, what state economists are now projecting is the state’s first and most significant ripple effect from the tax overhaul written by Republicans in Congress and signed into law by Trump in December 2017. The sweeping law, among other things, cut the total amount of state and local taxes that can be deducted from what’s paid to the federal government. Where Californians once wrote off an average of $22,000 in these taxes, the new law caps the deduction at $10,000. Wealthy taxpayers who used to pay their estimated state tax bill in December — and were able to tuck an additional deduction into that year’s federal return — no longer have an...
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Non-profit Global Green announced it will select two Southern California cities as new partners in the second year of its Expanding Biogas Generation & Food Recovery Initiative, which increases access to and the effectiveness of food waste recycling programs and demonstrates food-waste-to-biogas scenarios for participating cities. The initiative uses an Eco-Ambassador resident outreach model, which recruits motivated apartment dwellers to take ownership over their building’s waste diversion and serve as a community resource in order to expand participating cities’ food waste recycling programs. Global Green will also select two additional cities to model food-waste-to-biogas scenarios. Cities will be chosen based on existing access to food-waste-to-biogas production and/or an interest in expanding biogas production infrastructure, as well as their commitment to supporting underserved communities. Greater Irvine Chamber Leaders Circle member Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) is funding this free assistance with a grant through its Environmental Champions Initiative. The estimated dollar value of this technical assistance is $7,500 per city and will be offered at no expense to the cities selected for the program. No matching funds are required. “Cities selected for the Expanding Biogas Generation & Food Recovery II Initiative will benefit from Global Green’s expertise in waste, resource recovery, and biogas,” said...
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