The City Council on May 17 voted in favor of having its staff draft language for a 10-year half-cent sales tax measure to help fund public infrastructure, including repairing and maintaining streets, public safety vehicles and equipment, storm drains and parks.
Councilman John McCann opposed the decision, calling a sales tax “regressive.”
“In the past, the city of Chula Vista has tried to pass three sales taxes, each time those sales taxes have failed over the last 20 years, and when I look at this as a sales tax I’m concerned about it hurting our working families ... I’m also concerned about it hurting our small businesses,” he said.
Councilwoman Pamela Bensoussan said it’s what needs to be done.
“It’s distasteful and none of us like it, but I think it’s just staring us in the face. It’s something that we have to do the best we can to help guarantee that this problem will eventually get fixed,” she said.
As a general use tax, the approval requirement is a simple majority, or 50 percent plus 1.
If passed by voters, it would offset the city’s more than $550 million infrastructure deficit by increasing the city’s current sales tax to 8.5 percent. It’s expected to generate about $15 million each year, or about $165 million over 10 years, according to city officials.
City staff members identified potential deficient infrastructure that poses a risk to the city.
The older city streets are badly deteriorated, and in newer areas streets must be maintained before they deteriorate and become more expensive to fix later.
In addition, aging police and firefighting vehicles, equipment and technology need to be replaced or upgraded. Some city firetrucks are nearly 30 years old.
Also, most of the city’s storm drain system must be repaired or replaced before pipes collapse, creating sinkholes, flooding, pollution, property damage or injuries, city officials said.
City Manager Gary Halbert said the 10-year half-cent sales tax would allow the city to address all the critical needs.
“It would only be used to fix our infrastructure, our streets, storm drains, and parks,” said Chula Vista Mayor Mary Casillas Salas. “It would also allow us to replace fire stations and much needed public safety vehicles and equipment.”
What it shouldn’t be used for, she said, are new hires and new salaries. “We would be absolutely foolish if we did that because it’s a finite source of revenue.”
Halbert said a 2015 city-sponsored telephone survey of 800 residents revealed a general sales tax measure had the highest probability of passing among voters.
In addition, Halbert said a bond measure would harm residents living in the city’s master planned communities, which typically carry Mello-Roos and Community Facilities Districts, and would have an additional payment.
However, he found there was a downside to going with a sales tax as well. Because the sales tax would be a general tax measure, the revenue from it would go into the city’s general fund and could be used for any legal municipal purpose.
For transparency purposes and to try to maintain some kind of control on how the revenue from the sales tax would be spent, council members decided the measure would be accompanied by an advisory measure that allows voters to advise the council on what tax revenue should be spent on.
“With an advisory measure, this City Council and future City Councils, in my view, would at last have this moral obligation to use the money for what we say we’re going to use it for,” said Councilwoman Patricia Aguilar.
The advisory measure would allocate a minimum of 40 percent of the revenue specifically for public safety infrastructure.
In addition, an oversight committee consisting of community members and experts in various fields would have the responsibility of annually looking at independent auditors’ reports and reporting back to the City Council on how the city has performed and also make recommendations for the coming year.
City staff members are expected to return to the City Council in June with ballot language for it to consider.
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