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BACKGROUND Over the years, Pleasanton has realized much success in creating a diverse and vibrant business climate. The city has many strengths that attract businesses to our community, among them our central location in the Bay Area, excellent transportation accessibility, a highly-educated and skilled work force, good access to higher education and a high- profile community with an exceptional quality of life. As significantly, Pleasanton has infrastructure for business opportunities. Through public and private investment, a quality foundation has been established for business growth. All these economic development elements have been supported by the ongoing implementation of the City's Economic Development Strategic Plan. While that foundation remains firmly in place, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic the current economic climate has resulted in many Pleasanton businesses — and by extension, their employees —facing significant challenges, including little to no revenue to weather this decline. To that end, it is timely for the City of Pleasanton to consider implementing a Business Assistance Program to offer support to local companies during this public health emergency. Similarly, many Bay Area cities are exploring options to support the retention of local businesses in their communities. DISCUSSION From the onset of this emergency, City staff has been in continual contact with representatives of the Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce, the Pleasanton Downtown Association (PDA), Visit Tri-Valley (VTV) and Hacienda to offer City guidance and support as well as solicit additional input regarding efforts they believe would assist the businesses they represent. While companies across all industry sectors are being impacted, the city's small businesses and particularly those in the hospitality/tourism sector—that is, retail, restaurants and hotels — are most acutely impaired. Affirming this, most of the comments offered by Pleasanton residents directly to the City and in public forums are related to supporting our local small businesses, such as restaurants and retailers. City staff recognizes that when feasible such assistance programs should be broadly available to Pleasanton businesses and not segmented into programs for one specific industry sector or district; however, given all the input received coupled with limited resources, staff recommends that some elements of this assistance program be targeted to restaurants and retailers as these businesses are key providers of sales tax revenues that allow the City to provide services and programs that broadly benefit the community. In developing the Business Assistance Program, staff considered the City tools available to provide temporary financial relief to local businesses that would assist them in staying solvent during this emergency. As such, four key program elements were defined: Communication and Promotion, Transient Occupancy Tax Penalties Waiver, City Utilities Penalties Waiver and Deposit Deferral, and a Business Support Fund. Some of these program elements already exist but have now been expanded and/or redefined, while others are newly implemented. Following are the recommended components of a COVID-19 related Business Assistance Program: Page 2 of 6