If I can be accused of anything — it does happens occasionally — it would be that I have strong beliefs about at least two things: (1) how people who make their living in commercial real estate should behave professionally, and (2) the respective roles of the public and private sectors in fostering a healthy regional economy through well-planned — and well located — commercial real estate development.

I have long believed and know to be a fact that a healthy regional economy depends on a healthy downtown.

For that reason, it was interesting to see on these pages yesterday what could easily pass — at least in length and tone — for the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation’s corporate brochure. The writer of the Economic Development 101 column ostensibly took objection to a column I wrote earlier this month, “Downtown is key to region’s future” (Nov. 6) in which I said in part: “The EDC can partner with existing downtown San Diego organizations to effectively advocate for the economic development of downtown as our region’s primary developable resource.” I then suggested that the city of San Diego might allocate some of the funds it allocates to EDC to a partnership effort with the Downtown San Diego Partnership since downtown is a part of the region that organization represents.

A pretty heady notion, I guess, judging by the terrible and swift — and lengthy — rebuttal in yesterday’s Daily Transcript.

I’m trying to sift through all — and I do mean all — the many points in that column and determine just where my modest proposal runs aground in the mind of the writer. If I were the cynical sort, I would suspect the writer was more interested in lecturing readers about economic development and slipping in EDC plaudits than in criticizing my suggestions, given all the verbiage on such pronouncements as universities serving as a magnet, companies liking to cluster, and service providers following their clients.

Oh, yea, Bruce Henderson, Mayor Murphy, John Moores, Don Ings, Cal-EPA, the Employment Development Department, Employment Training Panel, “hot zones” — and, of course, Sept. 11 — were all tossed in for good measure into this supposed rebuttal to my Nov. 6 column. In short, the column was long, a bit pedantic, confusing, and, most of all, it missed the points I was trying to make by a Texas mile.

So, let me try again for those who didn’t get it.

Downtown is key to our region’s future. Both I and yesterday’s scribe have made that point. For downtown to grow and become all that it can be, it needs additional marketing and development resources. We apparently agree on that point as well. To quote yesterday’s column in part: “… we need to know a lot more than we currently do about downtown in order to ensure that we have a sound redevelopment strategy before we embark on an economic development strategy.”

That’s why I suggested that part — Lord, not all! — of the funding EDC receives from the city of San Diego could be invested into a downtown San Diego marketing effort. I’ll amend that effort to include validating or putting together a sound redevelopment strategy.

I suggested the Downtown San Diego Partnership as the best-suited recipient of such a collaborative effort. That organization is already in place with the singular mission to advance downtown. The Partnership is a smart and committed civic group of leading San Diegans but it lacks the financial resources to do the job by itself. Rather than inventing a new agency or, as was suggested yesterday, trying to pay the salary involved inputting a downtown advocate onto EDC’s staff with funds the Partnership doesn’t have — it would make more sense to fund the downtown strategy through some sort of Partnership-EDC collaborative. Hopefully, this effort can produce a marketing and communications product that can help the EDC figure out what to tell companies about the economic, cultural, civic, and business center of the San Diego region.

In deflecting my suggestion that EDC funding might be used to help analyze and market downtown San Diego, the EDC suggests “the downtown marketing effort must be part of a broader collaborative focus.” Not so. If in fact, the EDC truly believes that downtown is key to the region’s future, then it seems logical that the inverse would be true. A broader collaborative focus — in other words, a regional approach — must include a downtown marketing effort.

And that, folks, is what is lacking.

In chanting its regional mantra, the EDC appears to be avoiding the high-stakes issue of ensuring that downtown San Diego — let me say it again, the key to our region’s future — is developed and marketed effectively. There’s more to it than conducting a couple of focus groups to find out that people are concerned about downtown parking and crime or being a “vocal and ardent supporter of the ballpark.”

I certainly agree with the writer that we must ensure that we (downtown) have all the amenities — shopping, schools, culture, entertainment — which new residents expect. But those are only words. It’s the heavy lifting that “we” need to do — provide the marketing resources that will help draw these amenities to downtown.

That’s where EDC can help.