Measure U is the Sonoma City Council’s attempt to extend the 2012 “temporary” sales tax increase commonly known as Measure J.
In 2012, the Council asked voters for the temporary sales tax increase to help weather the recession as well as adjust to the loss of its redevelopment agency. It was a time of economic uncertainty and the City had been forced to slash its budget eliminating or reducing many vital community services and programs.
Now, four years later, things are different. The economy has rebounded; sales, property and hotel taxes are on the rise; city revenues now exceed pre-recession- ary levels. The newly formed Tourism Improvement District has not only increased tourism revenues by 57%, but also absorbs the cost of tourism-related expenses such as Plaza lighting, marketing costs and special events funding thus relieving the City of those expenses. The needs that justified the 2012 increase are gone.
As revenues rebounded, the Council got busy spending that money on new pet programs. One of which, the Community Fund Grant Program, has enough money to fund out-of-town non-profits with local tax revenues. New positions within the City that did not previously exist have been created as well. Making matters worse, this tax is a general purpose tax meaning any new revenues can be spent for any purpose the current or future City Councils decide. Promises that the funds will be used for police, fire and emergency medical services, street maintenance, parks or any other purpose are meaningless, just as was the Council’s promise in 2012 that the tax would be temporary.
Tell the City Council that promises matter. Tell them taxes temporarily approved to help during a period of economic crisis are not a slush fund to be continued in- definitely.
Joanne Bouldt-Sanders, former Mayor; Dan Drummond, Sonoma County Taxpayers’ Association; Susan Norton, citizen
After Measure J passed, the City went on a spending binge, giving $250,000 to subsidize the Chamber of Commerce’s payroll, promised another $250,000 to fund a swimming pool outside the city & gave another $300,000 to fund the Visitors Bureau . The VB was supposed to be funded by the Tourism Improvement District, which city council created by giving up hundreds of thousands a year in potential TOT revenue to fund the marketing budgets of local hotel operators, including a hotel owned by the biggest hotel corporation in the world. No Way On U.