Supervisor Don Gage stunned after voters send a clear message on
proposal without specific funding requirements
Gilroy – A controversial half-cent sales tax designed to benefit county social services and help solve fiscal woes failed to measure up with voters at the polls Tuesday.
Measure A was touted to help fund “general county purposes” including hospitals, seniors, at-risk children and transportation improvement plans for the next 30 years.
As of press time, the tax captured just 42.3 percent of the vote with 88 percent of precincts reporting – more than seven percentage points less than the 50-percent majority required to pass.
The measure asked voters to raise the county sales tax to 8.75 percent for the next 30 years starting Oct. 1. The move would have helped bail the county out of a $164 million deficit. In the last five years the county has cut roughly a third of its operating budget and county leaders said the tax was vital to sustain human services and transportation needs.
“You take a risk when you put it on the ballot,” said Supervisor Don Gage of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. “The voters vote, and what they say – fine. Then they’re going to have to deal with what the county is going to have to do to balance the budget. There’s going to be a lot of stuff that’s going to have to disappear.”
Before Gage went to bed Tuesday night, he saw Measure A failing to gather the majority vote, hovering with just 42 percent of the vote.
“I thought it would be close,” he said. “It doesn’t appear so.”
A lack of restrictions on how the new tax could be spent had some voters criticizing the increase as a backhanded move to steer funds toward BART.
“I am always concerned with money being funneled for one purpose to another. You never know,” said Todd Jackson outside the Glen View Elementary School polling station.
While Jackson never misses voting in an election, what always brings him out to cast a ballot is “anything that has to do with spending.”
He wants politicians to do more with what is already in the pot.
“Do with what you’ve got,” he explained. “I’m in business myself. I know how to operate within a budget.”
Earlier in the year, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group – the business association backing a multibillion dollar extension of BART to San Jose – abandoned support for a new, stand-alone quarter cent sales tax intended to raise billions of dollars for BART and other transportation improvements.
The move came after reports circulated that such a measure faced certain defeat. Since then, it has been backing the half-cent sales tax, stoking fears that Valley Transportation Authority will use a back door to siphon county money for the BART project, despite county leaders denying any back room deals struck to finance the project.
Gage said the half-cent sales tax was not just to secure funding for BART.
“I’ve seen the budget,” he said. “I know what the circumstances are. ”
The funds raised would have been used for “general county purposes” such as hospitals, emergency services, health insurance for uninsured children, prevention programs for at-risk youth, families and seniors, transportation improvement projects and affordable homes for families and seniors.
An election official who asked to remain anonymous, commented outside the Masonic Lodge that he felt people needed to look closely at Measure A.
“If you look at that (measure), the key phrase is ‘such as’,” he said. “In terms of what it legally means, we may as well put a period before it. It’s a half-cent sales tax for what the powers of be make it. I’m not going to tell you how I voted but you can probably guess. If they can say what it’s being used for then I’d be more enthusiastic about it.”
Supporters of the tax took the “such as” at face value.
Socorro Alfaro, a librarian in Gilroy and union leader for Service Employees International Union Local 715, said it was vital to pass Measure A.
“They need the money for hospitals. What are they going to do without it?” she said. “I hope it passes.”
Eloy Carabajal, a longtime child advocate, voted yes on Measure A.
“I’ve been a volunteer for child abuse for years,” he said. Carabajal believes the social service benefits outweigh the price.
“In order for you to do something good, they need to get the 1/2 cent,” he said. The at-risk youth slated to benefit from the tax captured his vote.
“We’ve got to get them out of the streets before they grow up,” he explained.
But for some voters, reading between the lines of Measure A proved difficult.
Alton Chalk, a former New Orleans resident who moved to Gilroy last year, talked with other voters, read pamphlets and researched online before casting his ballot. He believes people need to do their homework before stepping up to the touch screen. Nevertheless, Chalk found Measure A confusing.
“I wasn’t sure about what was going on,” he said. “Where is the (money) really going?”
