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From:Daniela Gasparini To:GRP-City Council Cc:MGR-Melissa Stevenson Diaz Subject:Business License Tax Agenda item -written comments Date:Monday, July 22, 2024 2:41:30 PM You don't often get email from danigasparini@comcast.net. Learn why this is important Mayor Gee, Vice Mayor Espinoza Garnica and Members of the City Council, Please accept my written comments with regard to the BLT agenda item. I am unable to attend and speak to you in person. First, allow me to applaud staff and members of the Council who attended the community and business outreach meetings with regard to a potential gross receipts tax. I attended 2 of the 18 meetings and found them very interesting and informative. As it relates to the item on your agenda today, I ask each of you to consider these observations about the Staff Report made public just five days ago. 1. The modernization of a Business License Tax has not been studied for over a decade. You are asking this community to absorb this option made public just five days ago. Be honest with yourself: if you owned a business or had to make a payroll could you understand this Staff Report? Do you really feel you have enough information from companies to understand what this specific recommendation means to their business…or do they even understand it? 2. Be Honest: I believe this sentence in the Staff Report is disingenuous. …”the city seeks to provide relief for our small business owners by asking voters to consider a business license tax modernization to ensure that large business pay their fair share for general services. Such a modernization would allow the City to maintain general city services at risk due to lower-than-expected revenue increases." I ask you…would you even be looking at this revenue generation of the city weren’t projecting this level of deficit? This staff report is not equitable. Be honest, it’s a convenient sound bite to say “small business is paying an inequitable share” 3. I appreciate the comment on page 3 of the Staff report that states “The City has consistently taken intentional, proactive, and strategic steps to ensure its long-term fiscal stability… Is that a true statement when this very topic hasn’t been adjusted by Council or by vote since 2011? At the Large Business (property owner/developer) meeting I attended, many attendees recommended a more holistic approach to minimize the $ 9 million deficit where many constituents participated in raising revenue or reducing expenses. The resolution of this deficit should NOT fall solely on the backs of business who are clearly trying to survive the effects of COVID,just as the city is.