75B - LEVY DOWNTOWN BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT

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Public Hearing — 2020 Downtown BID Assessment December 3, 2019 Page 2 BACKGROUND On February 6, 1984, the City Council adopted Ordinance No. NS-1715 pursuant to state law, creating a Business Improvement District (BID) in Downtown Santa Ana. The BID was established as a means of providing the Downtown business community with the funding to promote events and create promotional materials, increase the security presence, enhance maintenance of the downtown shopping corridors, and implement streetscape improvements to the area. The BID is funded through an additional charge on the business license tax for those businesses within the BID boundary. The City Council activated the current BID on July 1, 2013. To administer the activities of the BID, the City executed operating agreements with Downtown Inc. and the Santa Ana Business Council in an effort to address the needs of the two business associations. Each organization receives approximately $100,000 (collected from the business license tax fee assessed to all businesses within the BID boundary) per calendar year (January through December) and may carry over unspent funds to the next year. If the BID is successfully renewed, each organization will receive an additional allocation of approximately $100,000 in 2020. In Fiscal Year 2018-19, the BID, through the efforts of Downtown Inc. and the Santa Ana Business Council, accomplished several successful events and promotions that drew thousands of visitors to Downtown Santa Ana. These events and promotions included: Monthly First Saturday Artwalk, Artwalk Trolley, Savor Santa Ana, Boca De Oro Literary Festival, Santa Ana Media Summit, activation of the Promenades, Estrella TV promotion, monthly Santa Ana Sidewalk Sales, and the weekly Downtown Santa Ana newsletter. Both organizations also maintain social media accounts with over 35,000 active followers combined. STRATEGIC PLAN ALIGNMENT Approval of this item allows the City to meet Goal #3 (Economic Development), Objective 4 (Continue to pursue objectives that shape downtown Santa Ana into a thriving, culturally diverse, shopping, dining, and entertainment destination), Strategy F (Partner with downtown business and merchant associations to program events that showcase restaurants, shopping and entertainment venues). FISCAL IMPACT There is no direct fiscal impact associated with this action. The City collects the BID revenue from businesses within the BID boundary and distributes funding to each organization, in accordance with approved operating agreements. Revenues will be deposited equally in the BID Trust and Agency accounts for Downtown Inc. and Santa Ana Business Council (nos. 09301001-24036 and 09301001-24043) respectively, and distributions to each organization will be made from the same accounts. 75B-2