Santa Monica Approves Ballot Measures to Raise Revenue for Schools, Roads and Public Safety
While Santa Monicans are still waiting for the final word on whether or not Mayor Phil Brock makes a miraculous comeback in the late vote, the fate of the four city-wide ballot measures is clear: all four measures will pass.
Measure QS is a bond measure put on the ballot by the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. QS allows the district to raise $450 million through a general obligation bond that will be paid off by a 3 cent tax for every $100 of assessed value of real estate in Santa Monica. The money will be used to improve campus facilities.
Next endorsed QS before it was even on the ballot, and for a long time there was no organized opposition to the bond and hundreds of parent organizations, advocacy groups, community activists, and political leaders signing up to support it. However, a group of community activists did wage a campaign in the months leading up to the election. In the end, the bond passed overwhelmingly, as most school bond measures do in Santa Monica.
For more on QS, click here.
Measures K and PSK are also cruising to victory, although PSK has a slightly smaller (but still healthy) margin. Measures K, PSK and F were all placed on the ballot by the Santa Monica City Council.
Measure K will place an additional 8% tax on privately owned parking lots raising the total tax to 18% to raise $6,700,000 annually to help fund city services. The parking tax fee would rise to 18%, but will not impact city-owned lots where the tax will remain at 10%.
The language of Measure K doesn’t say what the new funds will be spent on, although it is widely believed they will be spent on making the city’s transportation system more safe for all road users (but especially bicyclists, pedestrians and children) and public safety. Next urged a “yes” vote on Measure K.
PSK is an advisory measure, meaning that it doesn’t actually require the city to do anything, that encourages the Council to spend half of the money raised by Measure K to spend it on public safety. A city council “study session” held earlier this fall was dominated by how the funds could be used to hire more police and firefighters, but the makeup of the Council will be very different when it comes time to spend the money then the one that was present for the study session. Next encouraged voters to reject PSK because it felt like a bit of an end-around to not put the public safety language in Measure K and have voters pass that. Voters felt otherwise.
Measure F will bring an estimated $3 million to the city’s coffers every year, but filling a portion of the city’s budget shortfall is a side-effect, not the goal, of the measure. The goal is to “modernize and streamline the badly outdated business license tax fee structure” to provide relief for small businesses and increase the tax fees on some of the larger businesses.
Like Measure K, there is no requirement that the funds be spent a certain way. Measure F was supported by Santa Monica Next.
