Should Sacramento Make It Easier For City Halls/Local Gov'ts To Incur Debt/Raise Property Taxes For What They Call "Infrasturcture?" Assembly Dems (including Bonnie Lowenthal) Advance To Senate Measure (ACA8) Inviting Voters Statewide To Reduce Prop 13 <nobr>2/3<.nobr> Voter Approval To 55% For "Public Improvements & Facilities"

(June 16, 2013) -- In a Saturday (June 15) Sacramento session, Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal (D., Long Beach) joined other Assembly Democrats in approving and sending to the state Senate a proposed state constitutional amendment ballot measure that -- if approved by voters statewide -- would let local governments incur debt bonds -- which show up on property tax bills -- for "public improvements and facilities" that those local governments may specify and for "buildings used primarily to provide sheriff, police or fire protection services" with 55% local voter approval instead of the current 2/3 voter approval required under Proposition 13.

The measure was opposed by all Assembly Republicans.

The Assembly Legislative Analysis of the bill states that the measure:

Allows a city, county, city and county, or special district, as applicable, to incur indebtedness in the form of general obligation (GO) bonds to be adopted by 55% of the voters of the city, county, city and county, or special district, where the GO bonds fund the construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, or replacement of any of the following:
a) Public improvements, including, but not limited to, improvements to transportation infrastructures, streets and roads, sidewalks, transit systems, highways, freeways, sewer systems, water systems, wastewater systems, storm drain systems, and park and recreation facilities; and
b) Facilities or buildings used primarily to provide sheriff, police, or fire protection services to the public, including the furnishing and equipping of those facilities or buildings.
1)Lowers to 55% the voter-approval threshold for a city, county, or city and county to incur bonded indebtedness, in the form of GO bonds, that exceeds in one year the income and revenue provided in that year, for the construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, or replacement of any of the following:
a) Public improvements, including, but not limited to, improvements to transportation infrastructures, streets and roads, sidewalks, transit systems, highways, freeways, sewer systems, water systems, wastewater systems, storm drain systems, and park and recreation facilities; and
b) Facilities or buildings used primarily to provide sheriff, police, or fire protection services to the public, including the furnishing and equipping of those facilities or buildings.
1)Defines "special district," for purposes of this bill, as the same meaning as that term is used in the California Constitution for the section related to voter approval for local tax levies, and includes a transit district, but does not include a school district or redevelopment agency.

Below is the full list of Assembly "yays" and "nays."

	UNOFFICIAL BALLOT
MEASURE:	ACA 8
AUTHOR:	Blumenfield
TOPIC:	Local government financing: voter approval.
DATE:	06/15/2013
LOCATION:	ASM. FLOOR
MOTION:	ACA8 BLUMENFIELD  Assembly Third Reading
	(AYES  54. NOES  25.)  (PASS)


	AYES
	****

Alejo	Ammiano	Atkins	Bloom
Blumenfield	Bocanegra	Bonilla	Bonta
Bradford	Brown	Buchanan	Ian Calderon
Campos	Chau	Chesbro	Cooley
Daly	Dickinson	Eggman	Fong
Fox	Frazier	Garcia	Gatto
Gomez	Gonzalez	Gordon	Gray
Hall	Roger Hernández	Holden	Jones-Sawyer
Levine	Lowenthal	Medina	Mitchell
Mullin	Muratsuchi	Nazarian	Pan
Perea	V. Manuel Pérez	Quirk	Quirk-Silva
Rendon	Salas	Skinner	Stone
Ting	Weber	Wieckowski	Williams
Yamada	John A. Pérez


	NOES
	****

Achadjian	Allen	Bigelow	Chávez
Conway	Dahle	Donnelly	Beth Gaines
Gorell	Grove	Hagman	Harkey
Jones	Linder	Logue	Maienschein
Mansoor	Melendez	Morrell	Nestande
Olsen	Patterson	Wagner	Waldron
Wilk


	ABSENT, ABSTAINING, OR NOT VOTING
	*********************************

Vacancy

The 2/3 voter support requirement was included in 1978's Proposition 13 on grounds that renters/lessees could otherwise vote to approve debt and taxes that would be paid only by property owners.

If ACA8 had been the law in 2008, a parcel property tax advocated by Mayor Bob Foster for infrastructure (categories, but not specific projects indicated) would still have failed (as it did), since it fell short of the 55% needed to pass, receiving only 52.5% voter support.

Prop I would have passed -- and LB property owners would be paying it today -- if Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske hadn't effectively blocked it by refusing to go along with the Mayor and the rest of the Council in labeling it an "emergency" measure (which would have enabled passage on a 50%+1 vote.)

As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, Long Beach City Hall has since received tens of millions of dollars, now being used mainly to fund infrastructure projects, as a result of Sacramento's forced dissolution of Redevelopment, an action fiercely opposed at the time by Mayor Foster and CA's other "big city Mayors."

2/3 majorities in conservative Orange County have approved special taxes and bond measures for very specific infrastructure projects (mainly roads) [comment: not for items like "bicycle lanes," labeled as "infrastructure," that haven't faced ballot votes.]

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association blasted the measure and the process used to advance it. In a June 13 email alert, the group said Dem leadership "has intentionally tried to keep this under wraps to limit opposition. ACA 8 would make it possible to pass infrastructure bonds and increase taxes on property owners with only 55% of the vote instead of the current two thirds. The result could be thousands of dollars in additional taxes on every homeowner."

The Assembly Legislative Analysis says the measure is supported by the Los Angeles Business Council on grounds that communities in CA had fallen far behind in their ability to repair their local infrastructure. .