Gov. Newsom announces plan to boost economy, create jobs across state

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — Governor Gavin Newsom visited the Central Valley on Thursday to roll out a billion-dollar plan aimed at bringing an economic boost to the state.

It’s the California Jobs First Economic Blueprint with a new Regional Investment Initiative.

“This is our 20-year $58 billion investment plan for the central San Joaquin region,” said Ashley Swearengin, the president and CEO of the Central Valley Community Foundation.

Swearengin says the goal is to continue developing the workforce and strengthening the agriculture industry.

“We can expect to see almost $100 billion of economic impact, 138,000 new jobs, and we’re talking about electricians and carpenters and ironworkers engineers, community health workers,” said Swearengin.

Governor Newsom acknowledged families across the state are being impacted by inflation and other economic challenges.

“The lived reality of people feeling on edge, un-moored, uneasy, and I think it’s so many ways to work that you’ve done putting us putting the work that’s been done. This reason is the antidote to that,” said Newsom.

The governor says they started with $5 million for each region.

The Valley has already received $14 million, allowing seven projects to get kicked off locally.

Thursday’s announcement comes just two weeks after the election and Newsom is calling a special session to safeguard California from Trump.

RELATED: Newsom meets with Biden as part of effort to ‘Trump-proof’ California

We asked him about the timing of this announcement, after he previously announced plans of trying to ‘Trump-proof’ California in a special session.

“What time? Two pages were done in the last five days. Over the last few years, and they were ready to present and we were ready to receive the fruits of their investments,” Newsom said.

“I like the special session. That’s a special session to focus on litigation preparation as relates to the reality it’s not and it’s not a theoretic exercise. We know what happened the last time Donald Trump Trump president he vandalized our progress. He vandalized our programs. And there’s nothing to suggest the last two weeks that he’s not even more hell-bent on doing it. Look at the folks one less today that he’s lining up to run these agencies, and that’s why it’s very important. We’re doing the work we’re doing today, putting our heads down, focusing on focusing on focusing on communities like this. At the same time, we want to protect our state and protect our values, billions and billions of dollars of your money in the Central Valley at stake if we roll over and we play naïve and nice.”

As far as the Jobs First, Newsom says in January, they will release the strategy and they also plan to start the competitive grant process.

For news updates, follow Brianna Willis on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.