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I i I II II Councilman Leipzig said "the one thing that came through loud and clear.... The dealers wanted us to renew and clean-up our sign ordinance." He said everyone had difficulty '-' understanding it. In response to Councilman Leipzig's questions, City Manager Everett said Mr. Chen's concerns had been addressed. Councilman Leipzig said the dealers wanted larger, better signs to be able to sell cars, and they did not want to "get into bed with the City and get into a huge project that they had no idea how we were going to fund." He said he did not have any major problems with Item No.2, Fee Waivers, but he said it was important not to get into a bidding war with other jurisdictions. Councilman Leipzig said 'businesses will come to Redwood City when we get our act together, clean-up our neighborhoods, downtown, pave the streets, get CaiTrans to pave El Camino like Atherton. . .. Let our car dealers put up bigger signs, let business do what business knows what to do." Vice Mayor Howard said as to Item No.2, she was in support of the recommendations as they give the City lot of flexibility to attract, retain and expand businesses. However, under fee waivers and tax rebates, she commented on "reducing fees for expansion of existing businesses..... How do we decide what businesses we want to expand and which ones we do not. We don't necessarily want all businesses to expand at our expense." She also said the City needed a prequalifying process in place before instituting any bonus point system to ensure all bidders were qualified and would do quality work. Vice Mayor Howard expressed her support for the Auto Strategy, and said a combined fund under Prograrmnatic Assistance is a very good idea, and said she was "very excited about the Downtown and Chamber working together to fonn a downtown association." '-' Councilwoman Buchan expressed her support for the Auto Strategy, but recommended that staff bring back more specific proposals on how to support auto dealers before Council allocates a specific amount of money. She said she would support Item No.2, but it was not the highest priority at the moment since the resources were not available now anyway. Councilwoman Buchan said she supported the Programmatic Assistance element of the Strategy, and supported the efforts of Don Say in organizing The Downtown Merchants Group. In response to Council comments about fee waivers and tax rebates, City Attorney Schricker said "from a legal standpoint, significant issues are raised by so called tax rebates or fee waivers because you inunediately run into questions of equal protection; and categorization that you use for legislative purposes becomes critical. You do have more flexibility from a redevelopment stand point, and I would be inclined to look at programs that could be implemented through the Redevelopment Agency as opposed to any legislative acts.... Congress has a lot more flexibility than you have under the State Constitution and your Charter." ~ REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING NOVEMBER25,1996 MINUTES MINUTE BOOK NO. 55 PAGE 8 Page No. 055