Lucy Mallonee
From:
Sent: Tuesday, August 1, 2023 8:33 PM
To: Lucy Mallonee
Subject: Public Forum Presentation from the Los Banos Chamber of Commerce Good morning Lucy. I hope this day finds you well. This is Roy Todd, and my personal schedule will not permit me to speak in-person at the August 2nd City Council Meeting Public Forum. I am writing you to provide some updates on the Los Banos Chamber of Commerce for the city's elected officials, employees, and the citizens of Los Banos. If you have any questions, please reply to this email or contact me on my cell phone (805) 208-0942. Thank you. -----------
Up Coming Events:
-Downtown Fall Street Faire September 16th 2023 / 8am-3pm Craft Fair / Food Vendors / Entertainment - Los Banos Rotary Breakfast is back and they will be out at event selling breakfast plates for $10.00.
-Halloween Trunk or Treat Movie Night - October 27th 2023 / 6pm-9pm Thank Sponsors> ARCO ampm / Sutter Health Hospital
New Members:
-HOPE Photography
-Los Banos Roofing
-Schina's Sweets
-Cali Spin Laundry
-Sipsy's
-Beverage House
-Azul Rustica
-Los Banos Post Acute
Mixers:
The Chamber was really excited to have had the opportunity to host a mixer with the Downtown Association last month for the Chamber monthly mixer. Both the Chamber office and the Downtown Associations office have been communicating very well and are looking forward to hopefully co-hosting other events together soon. Mixers are scheduled to take place on the last Thursday of every month, and we are happy to report we have the balance of 2023 fully booked.
BTW-Mixers are a great way to network and get to know other businesses in town. If you would like to attend a mixer, you must be a Chamber member so please pick up a Chamber application at the office or online and join the Chamber today so that you can join the fun at the Chamber mixers that are hosted at/by random local businesses every month. For more information about Chamber membership benefits please contact the Chamber office.
Roy Todd, Member/Director
Los Banos Chamber of Commerce
2 Lucy Mallonee
From:
Sent: Wednesday, August 2, 2023 10:12 AM
To: City Clerk
Subject: Public Comment for August 2, 2023 City Council Meeting At the last city council meeting a request was made for a report on the success of the small business assistance program that includes an explanation of the scoring system used, the scores that each business received, the amount of each individual grant award, the date of initial application submission, the date a determination was made, and the date the check was written. This is all public information and there is no reason why it can't be provided.
It was stated at the December 7* city council meeting that a scoring system was ready to be used. I will take the city's continued refusal to provide this information as an acknowledgement that there is no scoring system, businesses were not evaluated objectively, and that certain businesses receive undue preference while others are discriminated against.
The report contained in tonight's agenda packet is not a good faith effort at being transparent and the council should not accept it until it contains the previously mentioned information.
The report also contains multiple inconsistencies.
In the December 7th staff report outlining this program 550 thousand of already held funds were to be budgeted for this program, but in tonight's report it states 500 thousand.
Expenses for promotion are not an allowable use of funds for the small business assistance program according to the city's published guidelines so the rationale for why the 501(c)(6) was approved is inadequate. Other organizations were not allowed to apply for promotional expenses.
501(c)(8)'s are ineligible regardless of the type of expenses. One of the 501(c)(8)'s approved had no economic impact from covid and received funding to paint the building they owned.
This is difficult to justify as solely community benefit or to support the underserved community most impacted by covid when the most shut down businesses received lesser grants.
The city can not claim that discrimination is not occurring until they disclose the scoring system used and the council should not accept this report until a good faith attempt at transparency is made by the city. Is the city going to release the scoring system or not? Graciano Rubio
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