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OCCORD <br />STRONG VOICE FOR A FAIR ECONOMY <br />November 3, 2015 <br />Mayor Miguel Pulido & <br />City Councilmembers <br />20 Civic Center Plaza <br />Santa Ana, CA 92701 <br />CITY <br />nvllrOF <br />Dear Mayor Pulido and Councilmembers Amezeua, Benavides, Martinez, Reyna, Sarmiento, and <br />Tinajero, <br />Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development (OCCORD) urges you to <br />postpone your vote on agenda item 55B, the hotel development incentive program. While we <br />believe strongly that the city has a role to play in encouraging development and the creation of <br />jobs, we believe that the draft hotel development incentive plan needs amendment. It has the <br />potential to be a program that benefits the community of Santa Ana, but as it is currently written <br />we cannot support it. <br />A good hotel development incentive program can and should do the following: <br />Create good jobs, prevailing wages and benefits promoting dignity and respect for all. <br />Santa Ana has one of the lowest median incomes and highest poverty rates among Orange <br />County's 34 cities. Jobs created by subsidizing private industry with tax dollars via a hotel <br />incentive program must pay good living wages and provide benefits. Any hotel incentive <br />program must include card -check neutrality as a condition required for recipients of public funds <br />in the form of tax rebates and other subsidies. Participants in the hotel incentive program must <br />also pay construction workers employed on the project the prevailing wage, and ensure that hotel <br />employees are paid a living wage. <br />Ensure that the project benefits the community that is subsidizing it. Developers <br />participating in this program should also demonstrate a good -faith effort to hire Santa Ana <br />residents. Many incentive programs across the United States include such provisions. <br />Please postpone your vote on agenda item 55B until more input from stakeholders can be <br />gathered. Unions, community nonprofits, and Santa Ana residents would all like to contribute to <br />the development of the best possible incentive policies for our city. <br />ncoly <br />Ada Briceno <br />Interim Executive Director, OCCORD <br />