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Home My WebLink About7/16/2019 Item 15, Mitchell � � � i � �:. }�x �:, 1 1 1(1I51l�ips�mc�St�ee�,Suite 230,Sar�Luis f)byspo,C',a.93401 ��;��',y 550�716�(ciire�t}(�0�)7�Ia0652(phc�nelf�x� �;��a��"��'�'��"'��6�y�+°�e� ,�1�� a' �" � �,� � �' j° ii , f Hello Council Members and Community, July 16, 2019 � ��'� ��.�.�� My name is Mary Mitchell and I have the Soda Water Works Property in Downtown SLO. I learned about SLO Downtown's efforts to lien my Soda Water Works Property from a neighbor, not from SLO Downtown Association. Apparently, on the third and final attempt at a district map that would favor a PBID the Association included my property. I did not receive notice until June 18�', 2019 in the form of a white mailer that looked like junk mail. But for my neighbor telling me I was in the district-I would have not known. I am here tonight to notice City Council and the SLO Downtown Association that any attempts to violate my private property rights under proposition 13 with this involuntary special assessment lien will be rigorously opposed. I reference here a letter from my attorney Fred Glick dated �� t�,, 2a9, Efforts by SLO Downtown to bring such an assessment has been a waste of our SLO Downtown Association membership fees. After the first petition was roundly rejected by the larger Downtown Community et al. the Association and City should have scrapped the whole idea. INSTEAD, the Association decides to go against the wishes of it's membership and generate another petition map to farm the downtown community for PBID supporters. This second petition fails but the information the Association has gleamed-at membership expense is then used to create a Jerrymandered 3rd PBID map which is drawn along lines-zigzagging all over the downtown-picking up properties that had shown support through the first two petitions and bypassing properties that opposed. The resulting third and smallest map then is based on the data generated from the first two petitions. Data based solely on ensuring passage of the PBID - NOT data supporting which properties would BENEFIT from the PBID. As a result of the aforementioned political gamesmanship by the Downtown Association- it is clear that the Downtown Association will stop at nothing to ensure the passage of their self- serving PBTD. This PBID is NOT designed to BENEFIT downtown property owners but instead designed to ensure passage of a new Property T�Based Business Improvement District(PBID) to benefit the Downtown Association employees, not the members. The Downtown Association desperately needs revenue from this new PBID to pay their bloated employee salaries and rent on their new Chorro Street Office Lease. It took a letter from my attorney to finally get the Downtown Association's Tax Returns and Membership Roster. Still we do not have the 2018 Return. The Downtown Association has been operating in the red for some years now. If the Association were a business it would have had to rein in it's spending or go out of business-like so many businesses in the downtown. Unfortunately, the Downtown Association has the backing of the City of SLO and continues to operate autonomously-despite it's inability to balance it's books. The $400,000 generated from the failed PBID would have been used to balance the overinflated SLO Downtown Budget which now stands at approximately$800,000. Property owners will not benefit. Our downtown will not be cleaner, safer or more business friendly. In fact the increase in property taxers would just be passed on to downtown business tenants causing higher rents and more vacancies than we already have now. When asked about higher property taxes hurting downtown businesses the Director and the Board Members argue that"in other cities with successful PBID's property owners have benefitted from increased property values." What the Director and it's Board Members do not seem to understand about our powntown is property values are high enough in Downtown SLO now and have been for the last 20 years! That is why rents are SO high and why we have so many vacancies in the Downtown! Higher Property values =Higher Rents. This is a basic business principle that the SLO Downtown Association does not seem to understand. In conclusion, I have been a member of the Downtown Association for almost 20 years now. The Leitcher's were members since 1975 when the SLO Downtown Association was originally formed as a voluntary body. After what happened here specifically;the efforts by the Downtown Association to Levy a Special Assessment Property T�against my property without my knowledge and consent for the sole purpose of balancing their budget-I have to say here that the Downtown Association no longer has my support or confidence. The disconnect between business owners and the SLO Downtown Association has been evident for yeaxs now and after this PBID attempt-I no longer wish to be a member, nor do I want my tenants forced to be members. My property and my business tenants derive NO BENEFIT from being in the Downtown District. To remain would only be a detriment to our businesses with the chance that another PBID petition might succeed. It is my opinion that the City of SLO should take over the Farmer's Market and let SLO Downtown revert back to a voluntary organization. Only time will tell. Thank�e��a,�.�m.,,.� � � Mary Mitchell 2,