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Mr. Morton suggested a second unintended consequence to such a tax was that Springfield restaurants would have a competitive advantage over Eugene restaurants. He also asked the council to consider the timing of such a tax. Businesses were struggling through the recession and were beginning to crawl back. He asked why the City would want to kick business when it was down and chose one industry to bear the load. Mr. Morton offered to share his bottom line with the council. Joel Pomerantz, 1171 Risden Place, represented the Oregon Restaurant Lobbying Association. He did not minimize the education budget shortfall but suggested that it was an issue that belonged to the entire community. He believed a City tax on prepared foods would be unfair. Most tax revenues would be collected by lower price restaurants visited by low- income families with multiple jobs and no time to cook, and such a tax would be regressive in nature. Meal taxes had to be collected in both traditional restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, food carts, and where ever food was sold. Such a tax would unfairly target the food sales industry. It should not be the only community industry at risk. Mr. Pomerantz said that restaurants have small profit margins and losing a percentage of sales would put business at risk. Most restaurants owners were just hanging on. Kimberly Gladen, 361 West Broadway, #4, suggested a restaurant tax or flat income tax would hurt low - wage earners. She asked the council to consider who it was taxing. She said that such taxes took homeless families further away from being in a home. Her neighbors dreamed about having more space for their children, but taxing their incomes and their restaurant meals took them farther away from that dream as well. Such taxes also hurt the mentally ill and the disabled, who often held jobs. Ms. Gladen suggested the only fair tax would be on higher income earners who had enjoyed large federal tax breaks and advantages that the low- income did not have. She considered cell phones, computers, and cars one did not live in to be luxury items for the rich. Taxing her income would be unfair and taxing those poorer than her would be even more unfair. She said the City should consider who such a tax might hurt. Jack Radey, 2230 Garfield Street, questioned LTD's use of public funds to conduct a radio campaign in support of the West Eugene EmX extension. Mr. Brady's review of the information related to the extension and the response to his questions of LTD staff about the project led him to conclude that a "sell job" was occurring. Mr. Radey said that the facts cited by LTD did not stand up well to close examination. LTD seemed to have selected the projections that best supported its argument of need. He questioned how LTD could maintain such a system given the status of its budget and objected to the lesser service that he perceived would be delivered on West 11` Avenue as a result. Wendy Butler Boyson, 1265 City View Street, expressed her support for the proposed West Eugene EmX extension. She described her own use of the first phase of EmX system in support of her remarks. She believed the ridership on the existing EmX system spoke for itself. She said the buses were frequently full. Ms. Butler Boyson went on to aver that once the community provided fast and easy transportation in the form of the EmX system, people with cars would use the system to get to the places they wanted to go. She did not think that concerns about construction concerns should be an issue for the businesses along West 11` Avenue because of LTD's mitigation plans. Charles Hibberd, a West 11"' Avenue business owner, suggested that EmX between Eugene and Springfield was successful because it ran between two hubs. He questioned the sustainability of the proposed extension because he did not think LTD would be able to maintain it or support it into the future without causing damage or depletion of a resource. In this instance, the resource was the businesses on West 11` Avenue. None of them were supportive of bus travel. People did not travel to Home Depot on the bus to buy wood. He located his business in the corridor because it was a busy street and people came to do businesses in their automobiles. He suggested that the businesses on West 11"' Avenue represented MINUTES — Eugene City Council January 11, 2010 Page 3 Regular Meeting