For people living in the City of Sebastopol. Measure R will create four new 3.75% taxes on our monthly bills: our phone landline, cell phone, cable and garbage bills. The ballot measure is being promoted as a "modernization" of our utility tax. This misleading characterization is just the tip of the iceberg of the ballot initiative’s problems.
Unlike the three incumbent candidates I am running against for City Council this November, who are handing out flyers supporting Measure R, I oppose these four new taxes. I cannot support a plan that takes $70 a year from the pocket of my limited income, 88-year old widowed neighbor and uses it to pay excessive fees to consultants to update our General Plan, along with unannounced 20% pay scale raises for all the City’s top staff, and other questionable budget items. Meanwhile, an anticipated $8 million capital budget covering the next six years contains not one dollar to paint a single bike lane, despite the fact that these have been promised by Council candidates for many years, and that Sebastopol is the only City in Sonoma County not to have them.
I find the lack of transparency about our City’ budget, and an absence of specificity as to where the $260,000 that Measure R will go, both surprising and disappointing. These four new taxes arrive on our ballot just two years after a major 1/2 of 1% sales tax was passed two years ago. The new sales tax was so successful that in the 2013-2014 City budget, a rarely mentioned SURPLUS of $1.3 million was able to replenish the City’s depleted reserves account.
A few days ago, a little noticed Press Democrat Editorial (click to read) said this about Sebastopol’s Measure R
“In Sebastopol, the city is asking voters to renew a six-year-old tax on natural gas and electricity bills that raises $300,000 a year. If that’s as far as it went, we’d be more inclined to support Measure R. But the city wants to extend the tax to more utilities — video service, telecommunications and garbage collection — with a rate reduction of 0.25 percent as an inducement. The projected revenue is $580,000 a year for 10 years. Local voters approved a half-cent sales tax increase just two years ago. Another tax increase, as opposed to a simple extension, is excessive.
“Excessive” is a good word to describe Measure R. Like the PD, I supported simply extending the existing utility tax, which brings in $330,000 to the budget. I told our Council members this late last Spring at the first hearing to raise new taxes. An extension would have passed easily, but they made the mistake of thinking that their job is to add new taxes at every opportunity.
Lacking in transparency is another term I would use for the way Measure R has been handled. As a populist committed to transparency and responsive government, I am disappointed by the misleading rhetoric in both the ballot argument in favor, and the flyers that my three incumbent opponents are handing out.
Under "Some Facts About Measure R," this flyer supporting the four new taxes states:
"*The existing UUT represents approximately 15% of our General Fund…”
This is simply false. In fact, as our most recent budget states, the $330,000 in revenue that the UUT tax brings is under 6% of the City's $5.5 million General Fund.
This is quite a distortion (250% overstated). Yet not a single member of the Council cared to correct it, or apologize for spreading this mistruth, even though I brought this to their attention, during our debate last night.
You can read about that in today’s PD here.
Yet at the debate, the three incumbents, and Council Member Slayter, the CVS faulty traffic report-supporting candidate that I am most eager to replace on the Council, accused me of misrepresenting the facts.
If the Sebastopol City Council wants us to pay more taxes for 20% raises and new hires and overpriced consultants that are expected to charge $750,000 to $1 million for a general plan that could be done for a fraction this amount (read the estimate here), then I would like for them to tell the public where our tax dollars are going. Then see if we vote for it. I am fine if a majority of my fellow citizens do. But we have a right to make that choice with our eyes wide open.
We really need to bring greater transparency to our budgeting and communication. The same flyer touting the need for these four new taxes notes:
"There is a low-income exemption to the UUT for persons in need."
Yesterday I researched this exemption, since it is clear that our incumbents, for all their much-touted experience at governing, have not done this. The exemption is for single folks making under $32k annually, ONLY from PG&E. According to responses to questions I posed to the city staff, there is in fact no capacity or plan for Sebastopol to provide this exemption to citizens who have the four new taxes added to their phone, cell, cable and garbage bills--regardless of whether they are low income or not.
This additional misleading item, along with a lack of transparency on how the monies will be spent, and this week's City Council vote to blindly approve new spending for staff pay scale raises, with no estimate on the eventual cost of these raises, added to my decision to oppose Measure R.