Does anyone know Mountain View's budget situation? I might have missed it, but it'd be great to know. Menlo Park and Palo Alto have big shortfalls in their budgets due to the current SIP rules.

@Bored M

This was discussed during the very crowded May 5 meeting. The upshot is that revenue is down $7.6M mostly due to big shortfalls in sales tax and Transient Occupancy Tax revenue (hotels took a big hit), but the city's general fund will still barely end 2019-20 in the black. Hope to write a story on it soon.

@Kevin Forestieri

Thank you for answering that. I also heard that the city had some kind of surplus from recent years. Did they mention anything about it?

Thanks!

Thanks, Kevin. That's good news. I'm looking forward to reading that article.

Who, exactly is benefitting from these funds? How about a few examples. Hopefully the list of recipients will be published given these are public funds.

Is there an expectation they will be paid back?

And how is this not just lining the pockets of apartment owners who will eventually evict the non-paying tenants down the road?

Yeah. Not important questions.

@Kevin Forestieri - Did the City reveal how much the raises (adopted before getting a financial update) will cost in next year's budget? Also, did the City provide multiple scenarios (best, middle, worst)? If so, under which scenario does "barely in the black" occur?

I hope they don’t raise the rents this year or at the very least make it a 1% or 1.5% increase - not too much for tenants and landlords still get some money - for fairness - but I prefer no increase for the next year

is the city realizing that there's a rent problem yet or has anyone noticed that blue collar workers are indangered species. The landlords on the council are willing to prop up there precived rent losses.

Maybe we should build some more offices so it becomes even more impossible to afford this place

I wonder why there's a rent fund instead of requiring below market rate sales...Maybe it's because the developers didn't want to hurt their bottom line and they control the council