Supervisors direct staff to develop business registration program for unincorporated county

County leaders on Aug. 25 directed staff to continue developing a business-registration program for the unincorporated parts of Santa Cruz County, a proposal county staff said is intended to improve emergency communications, business outreach and local economic-data collection.

Peter Delafs of the County Executive Office and George Entis, senior analyst, presented the concept and emphasized that the program is not designed as a revenue generator. "I want to be clear about what this is not. This is not a business tax," Josh Davis, consultant with HDL Companies, said during the presentation, describing regulatory models that operate on a cost-recovery basis. Staff told the board the program typically would involve an annual registration and a modest fee; initial estimates cited in the presentation were roughly $50 in year one and about $25 annually thereafter as the program matures.

Board members pressed staff on compliance, data privacy and potential unintended consequences for small businesses. Supervisor DeSerpa and others asked for strong outreach to chambers and small-business owners; the county's Chamber of Commerce representative, Kristen Brown, described the chamber as "glad to be a resource" and urged business inclusion in the planning process. The board adopted a motion directing the CEO's office and the consultant to continue developing the program and to involve business stakeholders. The motion passed 5–0.

Staff flagged policy questions for the next phase, including fee exemptions for nonprofits, whether multi-site operators register per-location or per-entity, and how to address noncompliance (escalating fees, penalties or soft-launch approaches). Consultants advised using existing data sources—sales-tax records, state registries and private directories—during rollout, and suggested that outsourcing administration initially could speed implementation because HDL already maintains business data for the county.