So, uh the city did receive a request for a business subsidy. That is what be is before you today. There is um nothing related to the land use of this development tonight. uh it's just the financial aspect um and the business subsidy application.

A subsidy is used to meet a public purpose. So that could be anything from increased tax base, job creation, uh removing blight, promoting revitalization or rehabilitation of a property, meet other goals such as affordable housing, uh or encourage spin-off development of unsubsidized project development.

The only way the city would even look at an application is if there was um investment in the community as a whole and then obviously the job creation goals.

What I want people to understand though is logically that when the levies kick in for the abatement. Whatever the tax rate would have been will remain unaffected. The only way the tax rate gets affected for people in the back is if you choose not to levy that $500,000 in which case people see a tax rate decrease but not an increase due to this project. Their taxes could increase for other reasons you know school whatever but not because of these buildings.

All of the risk is on the developers where it should be. We're simply saying, 'Hey, you build these buildings, you hire these people, you pay them what you say you're going to pay them, you pay your taxes on time, if you do all those things, once we collect it, some of it's going to come back to you. But if for some reason it doesn't come in the way we think, um, nobody here is on the hook for the difference.'

While the responsibility for covering that loss shifts into the onto the hardworking families and existing businesses of Pine Island, tax abatements were created to help new and struggling businesses gain a foothold, not to provide massive financial gifts to corporations with deep profits.

First of all, this data center could be obsolete by the time a building is even finished. Second, it certainly will be when the computers have to be replaced in their approximately 5-year lifespan. And third, the council, mayor, and city administrator of setting instead of getting a few do tax dollars out of the data center are going to grant a tax abatement program to a company worth billions and billions of dollars for a building that is highly likely to be obsolete in a short amount of time.

This is a weighty decision. You're incentivizing basically changing this community forever. And your community members time and time again said, 'Please slow down. This is a way decision. Let's knock more gas on this fire. Let's slow it down. Let's not move fast and break things. Let's slow this down.'

So again, I want to say thank you or to give a long overdue, as I said before, thank you to the city council for all has done to help the city and the school grow together in the last 16 years.