Voters in the city of Laguna Beach go to the polls today to vote on whether to pass a new half-cent sales tax to help pay for costs related to the landslides that hit the city about six months ago.

Here is the Special Election analysis:

First of all keep in mind that this is the fourth, yes 4th Special Election Laguna Beach voters have seen in as many months (Special Congressional Primary, Special Statewide election, Special Congressional General and now this).  Also on the horizon is/are the Special(s) for the 35th state senate seat.

A majority of the city council is supporting the measure that smartly would sunset in six years.

I reached out to both Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider and Laguna Beach Republican volunteer/leader Frank Ricchiazzi for their insights.

Ricchiazzi expressed several concerns:

1) The city needs to fund repairs that gone incomplete could expose the city to lawsuits.

2) The city needs to fund, in a big way, the reserve account which now totals just three million dollars.

3) The city needs to fund a property management fund so they have the monies to fix, repair and replace aging city facilities.

Ricchiazzi says, "I believe items like, the Village Entrance, The Senior Center, contributions to the Community Clinic, etc. need to be put on hold until we fund the reserve accounts."

Mayor Pearson-Schneider also a Republican, points out to those who suggest the city is flush with cash, that they are not.  New revenues the city has seen in recent years have mostly been earmarked. 

The mayor offers an example, "Pension fund costs have been increasing substantially…  For example, we had an increase in retirement costs of $536,000 in this year’s budget over the previous year’s budget."

While new taxes are never easy to swallow, this one, a tax that goes toward heading off lawsuits and preparing the city for future disasters might be palatable to the Republican but liberal-minded Laguna Beach voters.

Ricchiazzi is well in tune with the voters in his city. "The Council will have one chance with the additional tax to give us the breathing room we need.  If they go back to the old way of business, the next request for any additional funds would go down to a major defeat, and I believe the citizens would probably run them out of town."

There is always going to be a reason to pass a tax.  To fund law enforcement, firefighters, pay for disaster relief, fund retirement benefits, pay for graffiti removal.  Some would say all of the above are noble causes.  The problem is that a half cent for each would put the sales tax rate well over 10%.

Luckily, no one is suggesting the lot of them be passed, just one.  But there is no ignoring that the piling on of new taxes will at some point seriously negatively impacts the residents and visitors and therefore everyone in Laguna Beach, a city that relies heavily on tourism for its revenue.

If you care to, you can click on this link after 8PM to see the results.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 13th, 2005 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.