 Hello, my name is Lucas Frerichs and I'm a member of the Davis City Council. I'm here to talk to you today about an extremely important item that will appear on the ballot in the upcoming June 3rd election, Measure O. Voting yes on Measure O will help us protect the quality of life we all enjoy here in Davis. You may be asking, what is Measure O? Well, Measure O proposes to increase our community's sales tax to 8.5% until 2020. This represents a 1.5% increase now and will continue until 2020 in an existing 1.5% tax that is due to expire in 2016. This modest increase in our sales tax rate will fund essential community needs that shouldn't be delayed any further, including road, sidewalk, bike path and street light repairs, as well as parks, landscaping, street tree maintenance. Revenues from this sales tax increase will provide $3.6 million per year toward our current $5.1 million structural budget deficit. With its passage, Davis must still cut $1.5 million to balance its upcoming 2014-15 budget. Without this measure's approval, basic services including police, fire, parks and recreation will suffer severe cuts, up to 12.5%. Davis will become a less safe and less pleasant place to live. The City Council has recently restructured labor contracts for major cost savings and long-term fiscal sustainability, with employees paying significantly more towards their retirement. Davis has also decreased its workforce by 22% or 103 full-time employees. The longer Davis defers major road repairs, parks maintenance and water conservation projects, the costlier they become. Davis is aggressively moving forward with economic development to generate additional tax revenue as a longer-term solution to the City's budget challenges. Many cities have implemented similar local sales tax measures. Sacramento's sales tax is 8.5%. San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley have higher rates than that. The economic recession has resulted in major declines in local tax revenue. Also, the state of California's ongoing shift of responsibilities to local governments, concurrent with shifting property tax revenues away from cities, makes it crucial to increase local funding for core city functions through sales tax. Please help us protect the quality of life we all enjoy. Please vote yes on Measure O.