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Transfer Tax in San Leandro applies to commercial and industrial property and easily one <br />half of the tax revenues derived from the Real Property Transfer tax comes from the <br />buying and selling of commercial and industrial property. To the extent that the tax is <br />repealed, it will provide a tax advantage to those industrial and commercial property <br />sales. <br />In addition, the Committee discussed other things that the Council could do within it <br />jurisdiction to suggest to the voters that it is not appropriate to repeal this particular tax <br />measure........ . <br />........Those are the issues that were considered by the Committee. The matter of the <br />ordinance creating the exemptions we've been asked to prepare that in detail and we have <br />a rough draft already. That would be considered by the Council sometime in <br />September..... . <br />Joanne Lothrop: I have a question, Steve, regarding one of the first things that you said <br />which related to putting something ...I wasn't sure if you were saying putting it on the <br />ballot or saying that if it didn't , if the tax wasn't repealed then we would make <br />recommendations to make some changes to the tax. Explain specifically..yeh the <br />ordinance part... <br />Steve Meyers: The first ordinance, the Committee felt .... again, going back to the basic <br />principle that governments have tax policy and tax policies are often used to implement <br />public policy and going back to that theory the Committee felt that it was certainly an <br />appropriate opportunity to look at the Real Property Transfer Tax and try to accomplish <br />some of the Council's goals with that tax measure by providing certain exemptions. The <br />thought was that ordinance would be enacted by the City Council, it would not go before <br />the voters, it would simply be an ordinance enacted by the City Council after the two <br />customary readings and it would go into effect and be applicable prospectively. But if <br />the Real Property Transfer tax were repealed, then there's obviously no reason to have <br />that ordinance and it would not go into effect. <br />Joanne Lothrop: So, just for ... I like the idea of that. I like the idea of saying we're <br />hearing the community's concerns as it relates to the tax in general, or we're hearing that <br />there's some concerns about it. I like that idea. I just wanted to say that I did. I would <br />include in it, though, something about ... and I don't know if. this ... low income home <br />sellers. Specifically, I know that there are some people, senior citizens in particular, who <br />maybe are going to change their residence or going to sell their home... someone's in a <br />rest home and they've got to move into an apartment, they have to downsize because of <br />economic problems and someone talked to me about this specifically today that that was <br />also an issue, that there were in fact people who are at low income levels who had to sell <br />their houses to pay ... maybe their spouse was in a rest home or something. So maybe <br />that's something you could add, we could think about adding that language in some way <br />because I think that goes to some people's issues........ <br />(end of Tape 1, side B, Public Comments section) <br />July 10, 2000 Work Session Notes <br />33b <br />Page 2 of 2 <br />