On June 7, Long Beach voters will decide the fate of Measures A and B. If passed, Measure A will effectively increase the city’s sales tax by 1 percent. The current sales tax is set at 9 percent.
The measure was intended to address a $2.8-billion need in infrastructure costs over the next 10 years. The revenue from the measure is expected to raise an additional $48 million per year.
Measure B is linked to Measure A, and it establishes a rainy-day fund. The first 1 percent of new tax revenue would be set aside in that fund to maintain city services and to balance the budget.
Mayor Robert Garcia, who has endorsed the measures, has won support from numerous sources, including the two preceding mayors, Bob Foster and Beverly O’Neill. The campaign in support of the measure reported an ending cash balance of $62,472.96, according to its campaign-finance statements through April 23.
By contrast, both of the measures’ opponent groups, the Long Beach Rebellion and the Long Beach Taxpayers Association, have only begun to organize their campaigns. In addition, if they haven’t raised or spent more than $1,000 yet, they won’t need to file campaign-finance reports with the city clerk’s office.
Long Beach City Clerk Maria de la Luz Garcia sent a statement to the Signal Tribune, acknowledging that there are no campaign reports from the opposition as of press time. She indicated that a committee formed to support or oppose a measure must file with the Secretary of State’s office as well as the Long Beach City Clerk’s office if independent expenditures total $1,000 or more.
The lack of funding hasn’t deterred Franklin Sims, press secretary for the Long Beach Rebellion. He has criticized the two measures. He acknowledged that there is an oversight committee, which will be appointed to review how the new tax revenue is spent, but they don’t have any veto power and there is no “legal guarantee” built into the measure.
Sims was asked how he would define a legal guarantee.
“What I mean is that the funds need to be allocated in a way that it can only be spent on what’s promised,” Sims said in a phone interview. “That’s a guarantee, and if the law were written that way, we would know exactly what we’re getting, and there would be no questions asked.”
The Long Beach mayor is acquainted with Sims’s objections to the tax measures.
“The city council has put in strong legal protections on this measure and strong taxpayer protection,” Garcia said in a phone interview, as he explained that the oversight committee has been modeled after a city college’s oversight committees and there are annual independent audits.
Garcia also pointed to a presentation made by the city manager’s office that laid out how the first $150 million would be spent in infrastructure costs if new tax revenue came in.
Sims acknowledges that the Long Beach Rebellion has only filed a statement of organization (also known as Form 410) with the Secretary of State’s office in the last few days. It didn’t stop Sims from asking the council members to donate $30,710 to his organization at the May 10 council meeting. He later indicated that the money would cover the cost of mailers. He said that he’s enlisted a number of volunteers who have concentrated their efforts on social media and walking the district.
The Long Beach Taxpayers Association has fought such a measure before, and its organizers are not afraid that they are not as well funded as the mayor’s campaign. Taxpayer-association founders Tom Stout and Kathy Ryan acknowledged that they started the group back in 2008 to oppose Measure I, another ballot measure endorsed by then-Mayor Foster. That measure to increase the parcel tax on residential and business properties did not pass. Both Stout and Ryan claim Measure I’s failure as one of their victories.
In a joint phone interview, both Ryan and Stout said that the arguments in favor of the current sales-tax measure are the same ones offered when Measure I was being considered back in 2008. They both argue that the City has failed to manage their money.
“They’ve overspent,” Stout said, “and now they feel that we should give them more money for the basic services.”
Ryan put the blame on the employee pensions behind the cause of the deficit.
“It’s going to take more and more money to support the pensions,” she said.
In his phone interview, Garcia maintained his optimism on getting the sales-tax measures passed, but he was quick to acknowledge that the voters will ultimately decide. He has been holding meetings with constituents to discuss the plans for the tax revenue, and his campaign has sent several mailers to residents over the election season.
Garcia said he was hopeful that the voters will support and invest in the city now, rather than wait to move forward on the issue. The city manager’s report from last week detailed a laundry list of needs. Streets, sidewalks, parks and public-safety facilities were among the bigger price tags. However, Garcia likened the issue to a leaky faucet— if it isn’t fixed quickly over the next few months and years, it would cause more damage to the plumbing system.
“The more you let it deteriorate and don’t invest in [public infrastructure],” Garcia concluded, “the more it’s going to cost us in the future.”
If Measure A passes and sales-tax rates in the county remain at 9 percent, the sales tax will be temporarily raised to 10 percent for six years, and then after that time, it will be dropped to 9.5 percent for four years. There is a “sunset” clause that will require the additional tax to end after 10 years.While infrastructure has been stressed, the tax revenue will also pay for 9-1-1 services and police and fire staffing, according to the ballot measure.
