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how active and busy it is. People make lunch dates for downtown and while there they do their banking at the same time. As long as the business is there, the banks will stay. Ms. Dennis commented that she normally uses the ATM for her transactions and that the insides of the banks are often empty. It seemed to her that the banks would want to be close to their customers and convenient to shoppers. For that reason she assumed a certain number of banks will stay downtown. She felt downtown did not need eight banks. Mayor Tarvex liked the concept of making it mandatory for four banks even though there are five banks now. If one wants to move out, the vitality of the area can still be checked on to see if it grows and see if other retail goes in downtown. If Council reduces the number to four banks, one bank has the option to move out. He wants to have a mechanism to control all the banks from fleeing. It would be nice to have the discretion to reduce the number and continue to reduce it until the market has totally taken over. Mr. Pico felt the ordinance was outdated and felt the nature of financial institutions is changing as quickly as technology today. The old ordinance was unenforceable and not workable. When there are five banks downtown and the City has an ordinance that says eight but there are banks popping up all over the City, he felt Council is not able to limit or restrict the banks. He did not see a problem approving staffs recommendation. Mayor Tarver asked staff if a financial institution had been allowed to locate outside the downtown area or was it a branch of an existing bank. Mr. Swift stated that in the Stoneridge Mall area the banks have been exempt. When the requirement was put in to have eight banks downtown, there were a host of financial institutions that came into various areas with use permits which was in accordance with the policy at that time. Since that time, there have been no use permits approved and there is at least one glorified ATM as part of a grocery store that is open for business that has essentially been waiting for the City Council to address this issue before any enforcement action was taken. He is not aware of a bank or f'mancial institution locating outside the downtown area contrary to the policy. Ms. Michelotti asked about the change in the staff report from the time it was started to now. Has it changed because staff feels it was following the market rather than treating a situation that is in existence! Mr. Swift stated that the Bank of Walnut Creek did come to downWwn even though it had other options. Staff feels that some of the downtown banks are so well-anchored in that location that they won't leave for many years. There has been difficulty in defining what a financial institution is, rather than just a bank or savings and loan institution. Several downtown financial institutions have indicated that it wasn't necessarily fair to them if they had to stay downtown. The situation exists that if four or five banks were required for the downtown they would have to stay but other banks could come into other areas of the City but none of the 11/21/95 -5-