REPORT TO THE CITY COUNCIL
October 20, 2016
FROM: BRUCE RUDD, City Manager
BY: LARRY WESTERLUND, Director
Economic Development
SUBJECT
Title
***BILL NO. B-40 - (Intro. 10/13/2016) (For adoption) - Council Approval of First Amendment to the Development Agreement between the City of Fresno, a municipal corporation, and Betts Company, a California corporation, recorded with the Fresno County Recorder dated April 28, 2008, including incentives; and, authorizing the City Manager to sign the First Amendment to the Development Agreement.
Body
RECOMMENDATION
The Administration recommends that Council accept for introduction the attached ordinance that extends the Development Agreement between the City of Fresno ("City") and the Betts Company ("Betts"), for ten years from the date of the Amendment to retain the company headquarters and job base in southeast Fresno.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On November 27, 2007, the Fresno City Council approved a financial based development agreement between Betts and the City wherein the City agreed to provide financial assistance to Betts to relocate their headquarters from the San Francisco Bay Area to southeast Fresno, in addition to, expanding their local manufacturing facility with a $10 million investment, retaining 90 jobs, creating an additional 75 jobs and remain in Fresno through the duration of the agreement. The ten-year performance based financial incentives agreement included sharing property tax growth, sales tax growth, business tax abeyance, payment for related off-site improvements and plan-check rebates.
Over the last eight years, Betts has substantially complied with all of the development agreement requirements. However, with the unexpected onset of the Great Recession starting in 2008, Betts property tax and sales tax values fell precipitously. As a result, the anticipated performance based incentives failed to materialize. Betts has thus far received less than 20% of the projected incentives in the...
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