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Dec 14, 2023

Calif. City Special Tax; Hot Topic again at Council Meeting

CALIF. CITY – The notorious Special Tax subject was brought up yet again at the Calif. City Council meeting on July 25th; several members of the public gave their comments and opinions to the council

CALIF. CITY – The notorious Special Tax subject was brought up yet again at the Calif. City Council meeting on July 25th; several members of the public gave their comments and opinions to the council during the hour-long discussion portion of the meeting. Acting City Manager Inge Elmes introduces the item which expires on July 31st of this year.

Inge Elmes – J.M. Powers has requested that this comes forward at every council meeting to discuss the special tax. Referred to the finalists for the ballot measures. As a reminder, the next time to do an election will be consolidated with Presidential Primary election of March 5, 2024, which is the final delivery date for resolution to March election and is still being determined which will be likely be early October should be about 88 days (about 3 months) prior to the election and there's a 30-day certification for March election. So, this will be around April 2nd and as I stated in my City Manager report, the group will have a presentation meeting. But today we'd like to uh, we recommend that staff is just open discussion.

Council member Creighton – Is there some possibility of a special election this year; is that the only option that the soonest one would be in March?

Council member Karen Macedonio - We could have our own, but we have to pay for it.

Ron Smith - I've got a few comments, Mr. Mayor. Sometimes we deserve what is directed our way, sometimes we don't, but we get what we get. It's been said that we have spent hours talking about the special tax without presenting any particular plan. So, I have compiled from what has been, what we've talked about, what citizens have talked about five specific options that have at least come forward, the first one.

Mr. Mayor, you brought up the amount of $250, the second one, Mr. Tooley has spent a lot of, and this has been brought up many times in the past on a tax that undeveloped parcels have due to lack of services. I think it would be appropriate to give him the opportunity to make a presentation. Thirdly, the one that I brought forward said that 1/2 of public safety at least be paid by general taxes. Several departments will be paid out of a pie chart like supplement. I've said this is pre-2012, but I don't want to tell you how much time I've spent looking at minutes and agendas in this past week. I'm kind of embarrassed about the hours that were spent. In 2018, one of the taxes that was brought up, one of the plans that was brought forth was that pie chart and one of the reasons that was voted down, there was no sunset whatsoever on that particular tax, and it was soundly defeated. We may have a number of good officers and good firefighters that will find employment elsewhere that do not want to wait till the very end. That is a concern. I don't know if either one of our chiefs would care to weigh in on that, but I think that's a concern.

Mr. Powers and I suggested a number of options, but this is one that is different than the others. Scale city services to match known resources or revenue and limit our means and then fifthly, that public safety would be fully funded by general tax and that if we're going to look for, if we're going to pursue a special tax, it would be for other specific services to be able to protect that which is most important to us. Public safety and of course water but these are the five options. Those that I have spoken to are not at all happy about even thinking about spending $95,000 to be able to find out what the voters want. I was asking questions from a former council member, and I said let me just ask you a couple of questions. I said, what would you be willing to pay for special tax? And he said I'd be willing to pay $500. But then it hurt when he said. I don't trust how you guys are going to spend it. So, he said what I'd be willing to spend was $90. During breakfast and during coffee, our citizens certainly let me know what they think, and I know our police chief says that he is an optimist, but our citizens are making it pretty clear. We're going to have to find the soft landing and I think for the five of us up here, if we are not willing to come to terms with putting forth something that is palatable for our citizens. History tells us, it is going to fail the first time and that puts our public safety folks in a horrible situation. Chief Hightower and Ron Smith responded to each other however, it was difficult to hear what they had to say.

Council member Karen Macedonio - To open my mouth, but this is my heart speaking rather than my head. We've talked about wanting to be a family friendly community. To me, that means we have to have Parks and Recreation. I see comments all the time about the damage to our cars from potholes. Roads are very expensive. I truly believe that what council member Smith just said, scale to live within our means is going to be crucial, but we can't do that without a budget. What I've really been thinking is a special tax that is more capital improvement. Aligned one time money that gives us something that's beneficial which means we have to scale the live within our means with the salaries and the benefits. But if we could know that we were going to get our parks taken care of maybe not even upgraded but just put in a capital improvement would be a parking lot. A capital improvement would be the lawn at the park. See this, things that are measurable, community benefit and then we had a budget and then we could look, OK, we can do this over five years or 10 years or whatever it is; if we could find a way to make our one-time money that is a measurable benefit from improves the quality of our lives, then I think maybe the conversation would be a different one, but I can't even begin to talk about that until we have a budget. And then we have to ask our staff, this is what our plan is, is this our strategic plan, is this our resolution; this is what we've committed to. This is legally where we are. We've got a lot of things on the agenda like our water rates. We're going to have to do what it takes to keep ourselves going and to improve the quality of life.

The mayor then called for any public comments and boy, did the public comment.

Jeanie O’Laughlin - I am so sick and tired of hearing about the special tax for public safety. The reality is public safety is already in the general fund. They just have special revenues. We have to have police and fire. So, even if the special tax fails, we will have police and fire. What will happen is other services will be cut. So, I think we need to take that off the table right now because all you're doing is a scare tactic and you're chasing people away. So, you need to take this as a police and fire tax completely off the table and I think you need to start thinking outside the box. Some of the things we need to look at is the cannabis industry and as much as some of you on council want to impede the cannabis, that is the only industry base we have at this time, so rather than hindering them, why don't we try to help them, promote them, get them legal? Compliance is a big issue. The more we have compliance, the better off we'll be. Even the state of California is encouraging cities to open up dispensaries because they know the more legal you have; it squeezes out the illegal. So, we need to work on that industry base along with keeping up with other industries coming into town. I think we should look at some different types of options. Maybe, if we have an airport, golf and park tax of a minimal amount and the money is only spent on them; maybe another fund that we used to have just addressed the streets, so these are some other things, but we need to take public safety off the table because that's just a scare tactic. There's no way we cannot have public safety and the reality is that we do not have enough revenue base to support our general fund and to support all the city services so we have to have some kind of additional revenue and again we need to look outside the box and we need to quit threatening police and fire because police and fire are not going to go away no matter what; thank you.

MDN – (at this time, council member Michael Kulikoff was texting on his cellphone) I did some research and found that City Ordinance #18-767 was voted on during a special municipal election on July 31, 2018. The ordinance was signed by then Mayor Jennifer Wood that states in Section 3-2.1.507: Use of Funds; all tax proceeds we divided evenly between two special sons. the Police Special Tax Fund and the Fire/EMS Special Tax Fund. Under section 3-2.1.509, it states that the final levy shall be for tax year 2023/24 unless the tax is extended by a vote of the people. My question is: Did you know about this ordinance and if you did, why can’t the city have a special election to extend the special tax ordinance that’s already in place?

Mayor Pro Tem Ron Smith - We are all fully aware of the fact that our parcel tax is. going to be done by June 30, 2024, we use spending hours and hours and hours talking about this and we are fully aware, and we are deeply concerned, and we are attempting to do something to do something about that.

Shawn Bradley - Yeah. So, um, first, let's see if we can do this sooner than the March date because realistically this is to be turning in October. That's three months from now. Look how long we've been talking about this for. We have no plans. We have nothing, zero. All we're doing is spinning our wheels talking about these things, maybe tapping into 3456 other citizens what they're willing to pay, what others might not be willing to pay. We also need to get the idea out of our head that we could never have this outcome improvement tax. No one's going to buy that. That's going to be your workday scenario. And in reality, what we're doing is we are more on the cost of a sustainability tax. So, that would be a misconception if anyone's view that that you know wrong information. But at the end of the day, it still doesn't suggest us to say that we might downsize, we might be forced to. Just because we don't lose them doesn't mean we won't lose some of them. And if we are trying to grow our city, if anything we should be increasing them, not decreasing them. And yeah, sure, it's a scale tactic, it's whatever you want to call it. But at the end of the day, I feel I know my special tax is providing me safety at less than a dollar a day for. Something ever happens to me that's cheaper than alarm monitoring service, that's cheaper than everything that I pay for. But at the end of the day, I know my money is being spent well. I do not trust this City Council. I do not trust our administration to spend my money wisely for other departments. All this wasted money is going after a City Council member, excess attorney fees that are ridiculous, that are going to set up over $1,000,000 at the end of the year. And that's the path we're on. We are sitting here figuring out how we're going to sell this when no one has even started working on a backup plan should it fail. Assuming again, collective approaches, what are we doing for that as well? It could be just as important to look at that. What would logistics be? What would we necessarily lose? What we have to cut down on some of our extended services that are not life and death matters that the majority of our population doesn't enjoy? Sure, we could say we can't care for the greens at the golf course. Sure, we can't. But we can invest in over a half a million-dollar building to sit on that that, that desert, you know, again, it's how we're spending our money, coming back, wasting money, wasting attorney fees, wasting all these things. What are you doing to show your citizens you are trying to get us as close as possible? Right now, you're just going to stand still, still wasting money and now you're going to go out there and say please give us more because without this, this is what we're going to lose. And that's true but you want my special tax money my time should be extended thank you.

DJ Twohig - Good evening and council. I've listened carefully to the comments that were made from the council and others, and I really have no objection to suggestions there are some good options to look at. One thing I picked up on was a special project. Special parcel tax for sets the design so that that one makes sense. Can you talk? If you want to have a delusion and think folks are going to vote for, go ahead. I was going to vote for that. And so, you'll maybe be more reflective after that vote. The other options seem pretty reasonable. Mr. Craig actually had an option of early, if you recall, with trying to limit the tax to $100. It is a really viable option. Use general taxes for General Services. That is the most appropriate method. I'm a policy guy. I want to see good policy in California City. I'm not a personality guy, although I've been told I have a beautiful personality.

Then let me tell you about the special tax policy. Special taxes have no direct benefit to the taxpayers. The majority of vacant properties lacked inevitable water, power and telephone prohibited to develop. Hundreds of million in special taxes that do nothing to improve city infrastructure. Special taxes are unrelated to property values. That's at the law. General taxes? Will that be for public safety personnel? Many speakers have said that it is important to listen to them. Special taxes are designed for special projects, not for pensions and legal fees. Tens of thousands of taxpayers have already quit and abandoned ownership. That's a unique problem that we've got to fix. Thousands more quit paying taxes each year. The government has been derelict of duty in the past to impose the cannabis business tax. A significant majority of taxpayers are disenfranchised and not allowed to vote on special tax or special tax ballot measures. Public safety personnel and paid leave and attorney fees paid from special parcel taxes. Is it problematic? There’s no strategic plan to sustain public safety and special parcel taxes have not reduced poverty. Destructive economic policies. Produce investment into the community. So therefore, I say to you, if you want to have good policy, make good decisions. I'd like to defer to the records that you have from Howard Jarvis, in particular to the findings from the California Constitution. Thank you.

A few members of the public made some comments however, they were inaudible due to quality of audio inside the council chamber.

Mayor Pro Tem Ron Smith responded to public comments made inside council chambers - Mr. Mayor, I think we made some potential headway tonight. What Council member Macedonio said, special tax, more capital improvement, measurable improvement by benefit to cost. I think that's what our last speaker said in regards to the type of benefit and the cost. People feel that they were manipulated, I think perhaps instead of 50% of Public Safety, have our general taxes pay 100% of public safety and have special projects in the parcel tax. But I think that at least two of us at least are coalescing around. The whole purpose for partial taxes is for special projects. What has been said by Mr. Bradley is that public safety is not going away. So, we're ready to say that we need this, it's not going away, and I can't imagine any council member sitting up here to not protect our citizens with public safety. Again, Councilmember Macedonio talked about needing parks and recs to make this family friendly town. We're going to be spending hundreds of thousands to be able to seek to improve the quality of life for families, but the skate park with splash pad. So, we are investing in trying to make this a place that families want to live. The economic development wasn't easy to take. But I wonder if we collectively are seeking to get tagged in, we've got housing, we want you. You want four plexes, we're going to have four plexes that are going to be built here because it's going to be popular, hopefully. But I think we have made some headway, and we have to come up with submitted plans. Council Member Macedonio even got more specific about the parcel tax being a one-time benefit. So, I think we need to continue to move in that direction and that we're at least willing. You know, I've stated several times, I just cannot support a public safety tax when I know that we're going to have public safety anyways. It's just not honest. We're going to have public safety and our firefighters, and our police officers need to know that we're going to have public safety and that they're going to be protected and so I think we need to get started by eliminating that which we're not going to coalesce around and find some options for us to get serious about discussing.

Council member Michael Kulikoff - I talked about this to the public, and from what I understand, the public wants to know what they're paying for. And they were in agreement with the police and fire, every department is going to suffer, and I'm sure the budget will get hit if it doesn't pass. But from the majority of the community I spoke with, they were in line with paying for police and fire, knowing what they're paying for, and talking about adding parks and biking for more money. A lot of them were in favor, saying if they see where it was going and they see improvements, they were in favor. So that's where I'm at, thank you.

DJ Twohig – Council; I mentioned that I have been serving on the current tax board for the last ten years. I'm not, however, speaking for the board, I’m speaking as a citizen, with respect to the e-mail sent to your council on June 12th, you'll have reference to the Redline draft code of Ordinance 3- 2.1, which does include an option for your consideration. So, if you really are examining options, you can refer to your June 12th e-mail. In addition, one of the documents in that e-mail is called the Introduction to Alternative Revenue and I'd like to read to you what was mentioned, which I feel is an opportunity to unify our community. I think all folks in the city agree that we must impose the cannabis tax according to the ordinance. One; prior to having a measure; do that first as a marching order tune, two; Invest in economic development, implement fast track. Do that first. That will unify the community. Three; Do your budget priority setting. These are the recommendations that I have for your strategic fiscal sustainability plan; plan for the outlet, like what council member Macedonio said, including special projects, four; the reduction plan. Tonight, we have a chance to reduce the reduction plan lawfully according to the Constitution. Make sure you do that lawfully and five; the dependency scheme, the manipulation scheme, the immoral scheme. I believe that's the best way to unify the community. Thank you for your time.

Shawn Bradley - Yeah. Deliver, deliver, deliver. You guys have an opportunity between now and October to start delivering things to appeal to the public, you know what I mean? Kind of like I think someone said here, it's like you need to show us like you're going to ask us for money. What are you going to guarantee us? Because I'm sure you have to look at your demographic and people you might have upset based off of your own past decision. So, when someone says maybe we'll have a, you know, a capital improvement project, right. That just is what we're going to spend the money on. But please give us that and we'll talk about it later and then maybe the people all around are like it, we can get our splash pad, you know? Well, you know, if they're not going to get a guarantee of things for them that are going to better them within their demographics of our community, Like, again, you have to start looking at all of your actions all of the ways you're proceeding going forward to see regardless of what plan you're selling, people might just be like, I'm not buying it. Like I just, I lost trust altogether. Even passing that, no matter what plan you saw, people aren’t going to believe it unless you start delivering. So, you got a few months to quote whatever for the fast track to show that we are open for business because you know you can say something but the actions you know not so much. So again, start delivering. Thank you.

The mayor then called for any more comments or questions/concerns from either council or the public (which there were none), he then moved on to the next agenda item.

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Updated: August 4, 2023 @ 1:24 am

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