California Gov. Gavin Newsom urged Bay Area business leaders to focus on the advantages of doing business in the Golden State while also promising action on the state's homeless problem that's garnering national headlines.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom took the gloves off in the battle between California and low-tax states eagerly wooing Golden State residents and businesses.

“I’d like to start focusing on what’s right for a change. I can’t read a damn article about this city anymore without ‘poop maps’ — give me a break,” Newsom said in reference to coverage of San Francisco’s homeless defecating in the streets.

In addressing the Bay Area Council’s Pacific Summit in San Francisco on June 21, the city's former mayor was equally exasperated by magazines’ popular state rankings for favorable business environments in which California often lands in or near last place.

“I see that CEO Magazine ‘worst place in America to do business’ and yet our GDP growth outperforms every damn one of those other states they highlight,” Newsom said, citing California’s strong economic growth averaging 3.8 percent in the last five years.

“Eat your heart out Texas, Tennessee — that’s always their top one and two. They didn’t come close to that,” Newsom said. “I get it. We’re not going to be the cheapest place to do business. But you knew that 50 years ago. Come on. Stop.”

An outmigration from the Bay Area has been fueled by the region’s expensive housing, growing traffic congestion, the high cost of living and a greater tax burden for the region’s most successful in the wake of federal tax reform that limited the deduction for state and local taxes paid. Then there’s the Bay Area’s growing homelessness that’s taking a toll on the region’s quality of life.

The region’s woes are spurring a cross-section of Bay Area residents to leave California, from millennials seeking to buy homes in places such as Denver and Nashville to baby boomers who are cashing out after spending years prospering from Silicon Valley’s growth and escalating home prices.

In recent months, San Francisco-based McKesson (NYSE: MCK) and South San Francisco-based Core-Mark Holding Co. (NASDAQ: CORE) moved their headquarters out of the Bay Area. Both Fortune 500 companies moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Even Chuck Schwab told the San Francisco Business Times in May that Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW) could one day move its headquarters out of San Francisco.

Newsom didn’t hide his frustration as he urged his business audience to focus on what’s working in California.

“For all the bitchin’ and complaining, I think businesses are doing pretty damn well,” Newsom said, adding that he owns 23 businesses with close to 1,000 employees. “I’m a business person. I don’t need folks to start lecturing me on regulations and costs of doing business.

“I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a capitalist, proudly,” Newsom said. “My mom used to say this, ‘We’re nothing but a mirror of our consistent thoughts.’

“Focus on what’s right, you’ll find more of it and you’ll manifest more of it,” Newsom said, adding that he’s taking steps to address the state’s housing and homeless problems.

“Know that help is on the way. I see it. I get it. And I understand the stress and travails each and every one of us feels around the rental issues and housing issues and our deep anxiety about what the hell is happening to our state related to the issue of homelessness. It is a disgrace.”

Asked in a Q&A with Bernard Tyson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente and Bay Area Council chair, what he expects from the Bay Area business community, Newsom responded: “It’s growth and inclusion. Businesses can’t thrive in a world that’s failing.

“In a consumer-based economy … we have to deal with this declining middle class,” Newsom said. “Unless we address this issue of growth and inclusion, I don’t care how big your fence is, how fancy your six-acre Atherton estate is, you’re not going to thrive very well even if your market caps have never done better.”

Newsom took the opportunity to praise Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), Kaiser Permanente and the work of the Bay Area Council in addressing the Bay Area’s housing crisis, but said more companies need to step up.

“There’s nothing wrong with the state of California that can’t be fixed by what’s right with this damn state,” Newsom said, citing progress in the state’s spending on preschool initiatives to help kids be ready for kindergarten as well as prenatal care and other efforts to boost education and alleviate poverty.

“We’re making progress and I hope you all start focusing on those things and not just that 13.3 percent damn tax rate,” Newsom said.