Chula Vista voters in November will decide if they want to pay a little more for items when they go shopping in their city.
The Chula Vista City Council voted 4-1 to move forward with placing a temporary half-cent sales tax measure on the November ballot.
Councilman John McCann was the only vote against.
If a majority of voters approve the measure, it would temporarily raise the sales tax from 8 percent to 8.5 percent for the next 10 years.
City officials have said the estimated $16 million a year generated from the tax would go toward repairing the city’s infrastructure such as streets, storm drains, sidewalks, and emergency response equipment and facilities.
Forty-two percent of that projected income from the tax revenue would be spent on public safety to repair old fire stations, replace run-down fire engines and aging police cars.
Mayor Mary Casillas Salas backed the measure saying the city is in much need of repairing its infrastructure and ensuring public safety.
“[The tax] has money for storm drain repairs, people don’t want to see sink holes in our community, they want to see that our pot holes are fixed up. This [tax] will allow us to do this,” the mayor said.
McCann opposed an additional sales tax increase because he said it is a regressive tax that hurts poor people.
The proposed increase is a general tax because the revenue collected from the tax will go into the city’s general fund.
This caused concern for McCann because he said since the tax revenue is not earmarked for infrastructure, future city councils can spend that money on anything, not just infrastructure.
The city hired True North Research for $51,649 to poll Chula Vista residents to see if they would support a bond or a half-cent sales tax increase. Results from that poll showed 58 percent of voters polled favored a temporary sales tax increase over a bond.
For a general tax to pass it just needs a majority.
A bond earmarked specifically for infrastructure would have needed a two-thirds vote, 66 percent or greater.
For transparency and to show voters that the revenue collected will actually be used for infrastructure repairs, the city proposes moving the exact amount collected from the tax from the general fund into a special fund.
However, there is not a binding commitment that the money will be used for infrastructure, said Deputy City Manager Maria Kachadoorian.
If approved, the tax increase would be imposed no earlier than April 1, 2017. The ballot measure revived the support of the Chula Vista Chamber of Commerce
In 2009 voters struck down Proposition A, a measure to raise the city’s sales tax by one penny. Sixty-seven and a half percent of the electorate voted against it.
