It's sad to see such a flagrant shakedown of large, successful companies. And I find it hard to believe that the tax revenue be used solely to alleviate the purported misdeeds. The City of Mountain View has a tax and spend problem.

The businesses that survive the state taxes and fees will be driven out of business or out of the state by new county and city taxes such as this one.... Time to vote these fools out.

Yeah the flagrant shakedown is hard to accept, with all the extra traffic on Shoreline Blvd and all the employees that commute into town and don’t leave their campus during the day to contribute to the sale tax or buy meals locally. How dare the city council?

It’s a shakedown all right, making them pay for the potholes and wear on the roads ... lol

Will the collection be enforced or are we at the mercy of the companies to pay their taxes? Web Link The City seems to have a problem collecting unpaid fees....

The wise men of Chelm must have big plans for the loot.

What goal could possibly be worth running businesses away from Our Fair City?

Preventing Climate Change Catastrophe once and for all? Medicare for all? Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men?

All three, I hope.

How many trillions of dollars have been wasted on regime-change Wars? How many babies have been killed? What good has any of this done for the American people? Will there be any repercussions for the past three presidents who consistently lied to us about the "progre$$" in Afghanistan? How thrilled are the American people to know that they'll be paying another 2 trillion to upgrade our nuclear Arsenal and devise smaller nukes that are "more usable"?
You know a trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon you're talking real money. So of course the logical conclusion is to tap Google for whatever we can wring out of them.

Driving Google away? $3.5 million? How much profit does Google receive? Is the contention that any fee collected from a corporation is counter-productive?

Will there be any distinction made between or quibbles about ft/pt employees? Is there any incentive to prevent the employers from making some layoffs to save money while the remaining employees work harder for the same pay?

Set to launch?

I received my business license renewal two weeks and got it in the mail this week. went ftom $30 to $75 this year. not exactly sure what I get for that $75...

Don't all these companies already pay taxes? I thought our current taxes were supposed to cover infrastructure.
How dare companies be successful and pay their existing taxes in Mountain View!

Remember not all the companies in Mountain View are Google

$75 per employee. Next to nothing. Lay-offs? Absurd.

The city may not look much different after the $6 million large company head tax, but that revenue could be transformative for Mountain View's K-8 district. Imagine pride and property values if our K-8 district was one of the region's most well funded? Funding has a direct correlation with a school's success. Our high school district is already the highest paying district in California, yet Mountain View's wealth hides that funding and achievement inequalities in the K-8 Mountain View-Whisman School District. $6 million is about the same our K-8 school district would regularly receive if school tax funds were not redirected to the special Shoreline business district. More info Web Link So if MV does not want to give schools the head tax, then give our schools their full share of the Shoreline funds. There are very city few policies that can overnight transform students' lives, this is one of those moments that could overnight change Mountain View.

The head tax was a voter measure, so the head tax is directly spoken for already, but that does not stop MV from using its imagination to then give our schools their full share of the Shoreline business district funds. It just happens to be the head tax is about the same as our local schools lost revenue from the Shoreline business district. That tax district was setup to improve Shoreline to attract businesses there, most would say mission successful, lets now treat it like any other part of MV.

Thanks Christopher Chiang! Reignite that "Sunset Shoreline" flame. The MVWSD recently renegotiated the general property tax 'misdirection' with the Shoreline (City) District. Slightly better than before, but not a legal guarantee and not permanent.

A Special Tax for the schools can be a per square foot tax on real property. Los Angeles USD tried, but failed by asking too much ("uniform" 15 cents per square foot for every single improvement, residential or commercial, in their entire district). Berkeley successfully implemented this, before the MVWSD Trustees 'ran scared' and advanced a REGRESSIVE same-per-lot 'parcel tax". Too bad.

BUT Christopher! You can now join former MVWSD Trustee Greg Coladonato and me - "take up a lance" :) and join us in this crusade for a FAIR per-square-foot K-8 Special Tax to replace MVWSD's current regressive tax ( @$127 for every Google parcel ).