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to pay for parks and recreation. It is untraditionai, unheard of and unfair. He asked Council to reconsider placing this tax on all business. Businesses support numerous charities, built the Council chambers for ~e town, helped make ~e Centennial celebration a success, and give a lot. Robert Earnest, 17 Foothill Lane, representing the Ple~_~_nton Downtown Association, supported the comments of Barbara Allen and supports the staff recommendation. Brad Hirst, 1811 Santa Rita Road, read a letter from John O'Donavan, President of Schoebers, Inc. Mr. O'Donavan is adamantly opposed to levying the proposed tax for the following reasons: 1) as a local tax paying recreational business, he would be supporting a project that could have a detrimental effect on its future; 2) the current softball and basketball programs offered by the City cater to a large number of non-residents and restricting the programs to residents only would open up existing space so the need for an additional park would be lessened; 3) we pay for advertising space on the scoreboard at the softball complex, which in turns helps offset the administration costs of the city to operate the fields. The goreboards aim allow the City to attract softball tournaments which contribute to the revenue stream for the park. It seems illogical to financially support these programs through scoreboard sponsorship and then be asked to fund a new park which may adversely affect our business. He hoped a new park would not be considered at the expense of existing taxpaying businesses. Mr. Hirst, speaking for himself, supported the staff recommendation and felt staff had done a commendable job in trying to simplify an extremely complex issue. Council has a history of asking for neighborhood input on projects. When this issue arose in May/June, 350 businesses responded with written letters to you opposing it. That is 9 95 of the business in Pleasanton. If you were to receive a comparable input from the entire community, you would have 5,000 people objecting. Before Council proceeds, he urged it to take a survey of the entire business community with a specific plan for parks. How would you tax all business; property tax, business license, etc.? How could it possibly be done in an equitable manner? How do you tax nonprofit organizations? He has always supported a strong parks program. He felt the logical way to develop additional parks was to ask the people who are the primary beneficiaries to pay for them, that is, the entire community. A general obligation bond would have everyone pay for the parks. Lastly, he recommended that any land to be acquired for parks not be in land zoned for business sector employment. Property in a business park is a long-term asset and should be treated as such. The whole concept of the way this community was planned was with the business parks on the periphery so the people who live in the community can commute out and the people who live outside the community can come into their place of business without going through the entire community. Considering the number of employees and business we have, the traffic load south of West Las Positas is relatively light. He felt using that property for non-job producing uses would defeat the long term land use planning. He agreed that the people who live in Hacienda Business Park are entitled to a neighborhood park and the business community is not objecting to that. What it is objecting to is an additional tax on business and taking land planned for business park use. 12/05/95 -13-