City Council is pushing ahead with plans to place a sales tax or bond measure on the November 2014 ballot, after polling data shows “solid support” for a revenue-generating “Quality of Life” initiative proposed earlier this year by Mayor Don Gage.
Approximately 62 percent of respondents said they would support a possible half-cent sales tax increase, while 71 percent said they would support a $50 million general obligation bond. The revenue would enable the City in one fell swoop to fund a mix of capital improvement projects and fix problems Gage says have plagued Gilroy for more than a quarter century. A sales tax would require a simple majority – or 50 percent plus one vote – to pass, while a general obligation bond needs two-thirds.
“We asked your constituents and boy did they tell us,” said President Catherine Lew of the Lew Edwards Group, part of a team of consulting firms hired by the City. “These survey results suggest that Gilroy residents are aware their city requires additional funding to maintain essential City services and local infrastructure and would support a finance measure to raise this needed revenue.”
Some of the to-do items topping respondents’ list include the maintenance of public safety services; repairing Gilroy’s streets and sidewalks; building additional shelters for the homeless; revamping the Gilroy Senior Center; beefing up downtown parking; and building additional sports parks for children and teens, results show.
Lew, along with Senior Vice President Curtis Below with FM3 Research, presented findings Oct. 21 to City Council.
“The Gilroy community is opinionated, feisty and diverse,” Lew continued. “One of the things you will see is they have very strong viewpoints. They make their priorities known.”
The polling was conducted in English and Spanish via telephone (cell phones and landlines) with 400 randomly selected residents between Sept. 30 and Oct. 8.
Council is undecided on what type of revenue-generating mechanism to proceed with, but voted 5-1 (with Councilman Dion Bracco dissenting) in favor of adopting a timeline to place a sales tax or bond measure on the November 2014 ballot. The consultants recommended the City hold a handful of public meetings, led by the consultants themselves, and conduct additional outreach until that time.
Details on how the public meetings will be conducted or when they will be held were not immediately available.
The measure is expected to be added to the ballot in July at a cost of $54,300, according to the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office.
The Quality of Life Tax is intended to generate funds for projects that improve safety, create recreational opportunities for the community and bolster economic revitalization and recovery, according to Gage.
Results show top spending priorities for any new revenue measures revolve around public safety services, with approximately 79 percent of respondents ranking the maintenance of police protection as “very or extremely important.” Maintaining 9-1-1 emergency response times was noted as important by 75 percent of respondents, while expansion of gang and crime prevention services was supported by 70 percent.
However, two Council members were concerned that some of the questions were misleading, citing what they saw as too much emphasis on police and fire services.
“It seems you asked a lot of questions to maybe kind of get the answers you wanted, you know, by throwing in fire and police and all these emergencies,” Councilman Dion Bracco said. “In all the conversations I’ve heard about this ‘Quality of Life’ measure, that’s never been mentioned. It’s always been parks, a football stadium at Christopher High, a Gilroy Gardens water feature (and) all these kinds of things. It seems like those kind of got glossed over and you brought public safety in there because everyone wants good public safety. The answer is always going to be high on that.”
Councilwoman Cat Tucker agreed.
“It does seem to me that the questions got the answers that we needed, in terms of the thresholds, but it does seem to me like we were kind of leading them the wrong way,” she added. “From my perspective, whatever we do – bond or sales tax – wasn’t going to pay for fire and police. That’s already my priority and that’s already part of the General Fund.”
Lew responded, saying it’s all in the Council’s hands what the City ultimately decides to do with any additional revenue and that residents were asked randomly selected questions, never in the same order.
During the polling process, residents were asked roughly a dozen questions spanning a breadth of issues related to perceptions of the current quality of life in Gilroy; approval of the way the City already manages tax dollars; the need for an additional revenue stream for the City; whether they would support a tax or bond measure; and which projects residents feel are most urgent. Respondents were also read a list of various City buildings, facilities and services, in addition to a few new items the City is considering investing in, and asked whether each item has a need for additional funding.
City Attorney Linda Callon added that California law prohibits general purpose sales tax revenue from being set aside to pay for specific capital improvement projects.
Senior Vice President of FM3 Research, Curtis Below, advised Council to push forward with a sales tax measure since it only needs a simple majority to pass. If the City wants to outline specific construction projects in a sales tax measure, Below reminded: this requires a two-thirds majority vote and is therefore tougher to pass.
Mayor Pro Tempore Perry Woodward reiterated Wednesday that a general purpose sales tax measure is just one avenue the City is considering pursuing when it comes to funding “Quality of Life” projects. But by law, if Council does pursue a general purpose sales tax measure and outlines specific projects that new revenue would be used for, the threshold for voter approval bumps up to two-thirds instead of a simple majority.
“By law, that’s how it has to be with any money that’s earmarked for any particular projects,” Woodward said.
Currently, Gilroy’s sales tax rests at 8.75 percent. A quarter-cent tax hike could grab $3 million annually; a half-cent tax could hit $5.9 million and a full percent increase could garner $11.9 million, according to Gilroy Finance Director Christine Turner.
On the purchase of a $28,000 car, for example, the current sales tax in Gilroy would be $2,450. With a quarter-cent increase, that would bump up to $2,520; with a half-cent increase the tax would be $2,590; and with a full percent increase, the sales tax would be $2,730.
“We asked for it and now we’re getting it,” Gage said. “We have a long way to go. This is just the beginning. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but a lot of the work is going to be educating the public.”
The full results of the survey, as presented by Below and Lew, are attached with this story alongside an executive summary of the results.
Examples of poll questions
• “Would you say that to provide essential services, the City of Gilroy has a great need for additional funding, some need, a little need or no real need for additional funding?”
-Great need (19 percent); Some need (49); Little need (five); No real need (18)
• “If there were an election today, do you think you would vote ‘yes’ in favor of this measure (respondents were asked about a sales tax or a bond measure) or ‘no’ to oppose it?”
-Yes: Democrats, 70 percent; Republicans, 51 percent; Independents, 61 percent
-No: Democrats, 26 percent; Republicans, 49 percent; Independents, 36 percent
Potential projects topping the City’s to-do list
-Improving parks and playgrounds ($5 million)
-Expanding parking opportunities in the downtown area (one example is a proposed $5.7 million expenditure to expand the Civic Center parking area)
-Helping a bevy of downtown property owners of unreinforced masonry buildings (edifices deemed structurally unfit to survive a high-magnitude earthquake) comply with health and safety codes
