A little more than three months remain before the November election, the same amount of time that Culver City legislators will have to convince their constituents that an initiative that will raise taxes during a recession is a worthwhile endeavor for the city as well as for their constituents.
City leaders agreed 17 to authorize a Nov. 6 sales tax ballot initiative in an effort to maintain community service levels and generate revenue for Culver City’s coffers.
The city’s voters will have the opportunity to decide whether or not raising taxes is the best approach to bringing in needed funds during the economic downturn, but the need to sell the ballot proposition cannot be overlooked.
“We will have an active campaign, going door-to-door, much like I did in my own campaign,” pledged Councilman Jim Clarke.
Scott Zeidman knows what it’s like to promote and sell an initiative that will include raising taxes. As the president of the Culver City Unified School District Board of Education, he championed Measure EE, a parcel tax measure that added $96 to the property rolls in Culver City in 2009.
“Local control,” Zeidman responded when asked what he thought was the most effective way for city leaders to convince the public to vote in favor of the sales tax initiative. Not coincidentally, that was the approach that he and other Measure EE supporters took in selling the proposition.
“Very few people want to see bigger government,” Zeidman noted. “And they want to know, ‘Where’s my money going?’
“(Statewide taxes) go to Sacramento first, not to Culver City,” Zeidman noted. “The parcel tax and the revenue from (raising) the sales tax will stay in Culver City.”
Clarke agrees. “The message that we want to get out is the half-cent sales tax will stay in Culver City,” he said.
Zeidman sees parallels between 2009, when Measure EE was on the ballot, and the sales tax proposition three years later.
The argument then for the parcel tax was to help the school district during a time of statewide rollbacks in school funding. This year, the selling point is a loss in city services as well as possible a further reduction of city employee positions.
“The services, a Class 1 fire department, those are the reasons that make Culver City a great place to live,” the former school board president continued. “Unfortunately, we have to pay for them.”
Culver City political consultant Jewett Walker Jr. agrees. “Every campaign has magic words,” said Walker, a Culver City resident who ran the city council campaigns of former councilwoman Carol Gross, former councilman Albert Vera and current CCUSD board member Patricia Siever.
“And the magic words in this campaign should be ‘public safety.’”
Cynthia Gibson, a public relations specialist who owns CKG Communications in Corporate Point in Fox Hills, thinks due to the sluggish economy the tax proposition might be a difficult sell. “People are still worried about the economy and their own finances, so it probably won’t be easy to ask people to pay a higher tax,” she said.
Councilwoman Meghan Sahli-Wells said the council was forced to take action by recommending a hike in sales tax due to the current economic situation.
“Doing nothing is unacceptable. In five years our reserve will be gone,” the councilwoman said. “We’ve seen in the newspapers the cities that are going bankrupt and I think this should be a wake up call.”
Municipal governments in San Bernardino, Stockton and Mammoth Lakes have recently opted for bankruptcy after declaring fiscal emergencies.
A July 19 Los Angeles Times article stated that Compton could also run out of money by Aug. 1.
“A cuts-only approach could be devastating,” Sahli-Wells added. “This raising revenue (proposition) is the best option to help us stop the bleeding from reserve fund and avoid extreme cuts that will destroy our services.”
Gibson said even though the Measure EE was a successful venture, things might be different this year. “Things have changed for a lot of people, even since 2009,” she said.
Sahli-Wells said she and her colleagues will still need to consider other approaches to bringing an infusion of funds to the city, even with the sales tax proposal.
“We also need to do more to find efficiencies and make healthy changes that help us reduce costs without compromising services,” she said.
Gibson agrees that one way to get the public behind the sales tax measure would be to tie it to something that resonates with residents, similar to Zeidman’s argument. “One primary way would be to attach it to safety services or other city services,” Gibson suggested.
Walker, who has successfully managed statewide taxes initiatives as well as sales tax campaigns in Inglewood and Los Angeles, noted that the increase in the levy would affect those who do not reside in Culver City the most. “Culver City has a very robust sales tax base with Costco, Westfield Mall Culver City and the local car dealerships,” he noted. “These places have an abundance of customers who don’t live in Culver City.”
Clarke pointed out that there will be competing initiatives that also ask voters to raise taxes, including a statewide proposition backed by Gov. Jerry Brown. “We have to be very conscious of those other measures,” he cautioned. “We don’t want people to feel ‘tax-fatigued.’”
“Everyone is tax fatigued,” Walker countered. “The question is: are they willing to continue to receive the services that they have for a few more dollars?”
Chief Financial Officer Jeff Muir says the tax measure is expected to generate approximately $8 million.
Walker said while he thinks the tax initiative can be sold, it is certainly not a given. “(The city) is going to have to run a campaign (in order to get its residents) to approve it,” the political consultant said. “They just can’t put it on the ballot, not campaign for it and expect it to pass.
“If they don’t sell it properly, it will bomb,” he predicted.
Gibson thinks city officials have no time to waste if they are going to successfully campaign for the ballot measure, given that it is the end of August.
“If they are going to get started, the time is now,” she asserted.
