As a member of the Solana Beach business community, I have heard the City characterized as “business unfriendly.” But is that characterization really accurate? For example, the editorial by Mayor Mike Nichols in the November 27, 2009 Solana Beach Sun was certainly not “business unfriendly.” In fact, if anything, it was written by a business booster who loves the casualness and familiarity he found in interacting with our business community, is vitally interested in seeing that community prosper, and indeed is part of that business community himself.

The City Council recently voted to send a proposed business tax to the voters in the June 2010 election. This act is one part of a comprehensive plan the budget gap caused by the current recession. Although, on the surface, the imposition of the tax appears unfriendly and was not welcomed by business in general, the fact is that Solana Beach has held off imposing such a tax for a long time. The vast majority of California cities have levied business taxes for decades. As a gesture of the goodwill the City has toward business, the City took the unprecedented step of asking the business community to participate in the formulation of the tax itself and, even more to their credit, listened to what the business community wanted and what they were concerned about.

If the business tax is passed by the voters, the business community will be on equal fiscal footing with the rest of the City in terms of the revenue raised for the General Fund. This fact means that the business community and the City, although they have always had a positive relationship in terms customer/business interactions, are also intertwined in the fiscal health of the City.

One of the ways this interrelationship has been recognized was the “Shop Solana First” campaign begun months ago. The Mayor, in the editorial referred to above, took that concept a step further and encouraged the citizenry to do their holiday shopping in the City to help the local merchants and to boost our sales tax revenues.

To make hometown shopping easier, we have developed a Directory of all retail establishments in the City. If the business tax is voted in, all of our businesses will pay a tax to the City and will be an important contributor to the gross revenue generated in the City. So again, Shopping Solana First not only supports businesses in the City but in turn increases the business tax revenue. To make it easier to identify our local businesses and professionals we have expanded the Solana Beach Directory into the Solana Beach Yellow Pages.

Finally, in spite of the recession, many in the business community (for a variety of reasons) have been building, remodeling, and refurbishing their locations. The downtown area has seen millions of dollars in expenditures. The City recently unveiled a 101 study to revitalize the main corridor through our City. Again, the Mayor, City Council and the City Manager have discussed this project not only in terms of its traffic management benefits, but as a vital step in the City’s contribution to the continuing partnership between the business community and the City.