Minutes Exhibit C
Thank you Commissioners, Port Executives and Staff. My name is David Montanaro and I am the managing Partner of Pallino in the Central Terminal. We have been serving travelers, Port Employees and other workers at the airport since 2005. I am also a member of the Small Business Airport Action Committee, a group formed to communicate the concerns and challenges facing small business concessionaires. We recently wrote to you with our suggestions for a comprehensive solution and to request we be included as true partners in discussions concerning relief efforts. I, along with many of my colleagues, are speaking here today to further share with you our belief that the viability and vitality of the concession program at SeaTac, a program we are all proud of and worked so hard to create, is at risk. The current proposal to defer rent for two months with a "possible" additional two-month deferral, while well intentioned, is tone deaf if it is expected to be anywhere near enough to preserve the concession program. Whether our businesses remain open or closed, costs are piling up and revenues are lost forever. Pallino has chosen to stay open as a service to the airport community and to support as many of our employees as possible with what work is available. Sales barely cover the cost of the food we are serving let along all other expenses and employee relief. The PPP program that many of us have applied for is a band aid and will not make a dent in piling expenses. Some of us experienced the 2008 downturn and a few 9/11. Both times it took years for traffic to resume to previous precollapse levels. No one can be certain how long it will take us post Covid Today's situation will be far worse as there are many more of us sharing what is, and will be, for quite some time, a much smaller pie. Plans, agreements and expectations crafted in a pre-Covid world are untenable in a Post Covid environment with all the uncertainty that comes with it. The sooner we can all get beyond the "IF" contracts and arrangements have to change and start focusing on the "How" and "When" the closer we will be to a workable solution. As small businesses, we do not have access to the public markets for funds, large balance sheets, or a team of lobbyists and executives with access at all levels of government. For us it is not only business, it is personal. The Port and Commission continually profess to support and promote small businesses and to value the diversity, commitment and personality we bring to the airport. If that is truly the case, their needs to be collaboration, consideration and accommodation for our unique situation. Public testimony at these meetings is an important element of the public process. That said as Port tenants and partners we should not have to use this forum to be heard and communicate our needs. We do not see the airlines executives and other large operators having to come here to testify to let their needs be known. They are already part of the discussion. Thank you for your consideration.
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