☆ Why the Merc & tax groups say “No” to Measure D, the parcel tax for Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority

Kreuzschnabel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On this Tax-Free Tuesday (5.25) Opp Now editor Will Sherman explores the Merc’s important opposition to Measure D and how a little-known loophole makes it fantastically easy to raise your parcel tax, despite what you may have thought were Prop 13 protections. An Opp Now exclusive.

It should be hard to raise taxes. In California, special taxes require two-thirds of the vote. But state courts carved a way around this. The “Upland loophole” makes it easy, allowing for approval by only a simple majority. This is done through the “citizens’ initiative” process that, despite its name, has “government” written all over it.

The Merc decries heavy government involvement to circumvent the two-thirds threshold

“Measure D’s route to the ballot has been unconventional and troubling. The authority devised the structure of the tax. But when a special district places a tax on the ballot in California, it requires approval from two-thirds of voters, a threshold that authority-commissioned polling showed it could not meet.

“So, the political arm of the Peninsula Open Space Trust, which helps acquire land that the open space authority often manages, qualified the measure for the ballot through an initiative signature-gathering drive. That route enables passage with only a simple majority.

“Clearly, this is a coordinated effort between the authority and the trust to circumvent the two-thirds voter approval threshold.

“When the authority last sought taxing approval in 2020, that measure received 81% voter support. This time, rather than trying to game the system, the authority should come back with a more-tempered measure that can again win such widespread support.” ~The Mercury News Editorial

☆ Why the Merc & tax groups say “No” to Measure D, the parcel tax for Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority

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