Council Hears An Earful From Community on Fiscal Responsibility, Revenue Needs – Council will push the tax measure issue right up until the limit, asking staff to return on February 11, 2014, the last day it can act to put a tax measure on the ballot. A sales tax must go on the June ballot according to state law and if the council fails to act by February 11, they would have to wait until June 2016 before enacting a sales tax increase.
Council asked staff to come back with a range of options to move forward with a basic structure for a sales tax in June and a parcel tax in November. The sales tax could be accompanied by a separate advisory vote that would make it clear how dollars would be used.
As a general fund tax, the council cannot designate how money from a sales tax could be spent. A parcel tax has a much more stringent requirement in which all money must be designated for specific purposes. The disadvantage of the parcel tax from the council’s perspective is the two-thirds vote requirement.
There are other options that the council wants to look at, including the idea of increasing the parks parcel tax, having a shorter tax period than ten years, and having the half-cent sales tax enacted in 2010 be included in this ballot measure.
Some of the recommendations came out of a focus group discussion of 14 Davis residents over two sessions in January. As Councilmember Brett Lee explained, “There was a real desire to see a comprehensive package, a plan… as to how we have a long term sustainable budget.”
There were two components to that, the economic development component and then the additional tax measures. “The idea here is that the tax measure… would sunset at the approximate time that we thought the economic development piece would be able to take over,” said Councilmember Lee.
“They were concerned about… ten years from now we are going to renew it and then always renew it. They wanted to see a coherent plan so that in the long run we’re able to be a self-sustaining community not solely based on extra taxes,” he added.
There were a range of concerns raised during public comment, one of which was that we ask for enough.
As Matt Williams stated, “I don’t think we want to take the risk of going into November where we cut back to be cautious and failed and now we go about asking for approval of the long range plan of asking for peripheral business development plus more taxes. I think we have to bite the bullet now.”
Doby Fleeman expressed his frustration with council, “We have all of the potential in the world, what have we been doing for the past five or six years?”
“The reason I feel entitled to be as upset as I am is that for the last five years since 2009, I have been here banging my shoe on this table asking you to pursue revenue opportunities,” Mr. Fleeman continued. “I haven’t seen one smidgen of progress on that. We’ve talked. We’ve assigned task forces on it. We’ve considered.”
He pointed out that while we put a lot of effort into securing grants for bicycle paths, “My hat is off to city staff, but why couldn’t we have had the same kind of directive and direction given to staff on the same type of pronouncement given to the community on the economic development initiative, so that we won’t be saying that we won’t have a business park for five years, but that would we already be way down the line on that score.”
Chamber Executive Director Kemble Pope expressed concern about the focus group process, that a number of people were called into a private room and it was presented “as the will of the community.” He suggested, “This council [should] work with staff on a plan of systematic development of an informed consent.”
“You have got to have a plan in place every time you need public input, you know how to do that, you know how to get it. You need a public engagement officer and you need a plan to do that, because right now it’s haphazard.”
He cited a survey of chamber members with more than half having no idea about this public shortfall and another 15 percent were only somewhat aware. Only 14% wanted no further reductions.
“People are willing to feel the pain,” he said at least referring to chamber members. “A good sixty percent said cut expenditures, keep cutting, we’re willing to give up services. We’re willing to give up programs. I don’t think that you understand truly the desire for the public to actually feel a little more heat rather than take on more and more debt for a bunch of goodies that people don’t think we actually need.”
He said to deal with the structural deficit and short term needs, “but this is, I don’t think, going to fly with the community.”
Councilmember Brett Lee would respond to these comments in a pointed way.
There was a suggestion by one of the commenters that housing was a revenue generator. Councilmember Lee responded, “The Cannery Project for instance, we examined the long-term revenue impacts to the city on that and the Finance and Budget Commission working with the finance determined that it was roughly neutral, depending on how you vary the assumptions ever so slightly it came out over a twenty-year period to be slightly positive or slightly negative.”
“Housing development is not a big revenue generator for the city,” he added.
He then responded to Kemble Pope and suggested that of course the city should try to save money. He then said, “Perhaps next time you do a survey maybe we can ask some specifics. So when faced with a sizable deficit like the one we’re facing, perhaps you can ask your members if they would support closing a fire station and having a corresponding higher response time for various neighborhoods.”
“That’s the type of thing that would be required in order to bridge this deficit,” he continued. “Or perhaps they would be willing to close all of the parks to stop all maintenance on them, close all the pools, and all recreation programs and see what the percentages are.”
“I think I could stand in front of the Safeway and ask people if they want a more efficient city government, I think I’d be surprised if I got many noes,” he added. “I think on the other hand if I asked people if they were willing to pay more to maintain the current level of city services, such as fire and police, I think they would be supportive.”
So he suggested that the question be asked specifically to the Chamber Membership as to where people want to cut in order to save money.
In her remarks, Rochelle Swanson expressed concern about the prioritization of economic development. “This really disturbs me,” she said. She noted the clarity of the sales tax and the parcel tax and “then some fuzzy ‘pursue economic development.’ I’m sorry I can’t even get beyond that.” She added, “How about secure revenue through economic development.”
She would later add that she is concerned about the notion that an Innovation Park would save us. “I just doesn’t want us to wait thinking it’s the panacea that will save us,” Councilmember Swanson said.
Councilmember Lucas Frerichs added that while there is no question that we need additional revenue via a business park, there are no guarantees that this is a given since it is a Measure R vote.
“I understand in general a sales tax goes into the general fund and it becomes general revenue and there’s no way for us to earmark that, correct?” Councilmember Swanson asked.
City Attorney Harriet Steiner responded, “There is no way for you to legally earmark that. You can place before the voters, a companion measure, a separate advisory measure where the voters indicate their desire for the council to use the funds raised by the sales tax for certain purposes. That would be a non-binding statement of intent by the voters and many cities do that.”
Councilmember Swanson replied, “I think that would be helpful because I agree with some of the folks in the audience that people are saying this community does really well when there’s something tangible that we know that we are trying to preserve.”
For Councilmember Brett Lee this is about preserving what it is about Davis that makes it special and why people in this community feel like they can go about their lives and not have to lock themselves in their homes each night. He would add, “I really don’t want to be the one to watch our city lose what’s special about it.”
Later he would note that whatever the council does, it should be enough to pay the bills. He said, “Don’t ask for $5 if you really need $10 and don’t put on a five year tax if you need it for ten.”
Council unanimously directed city staff to bring back a number options and encouraged public outreach on this matter to continue.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“Chamber Executive Director Kemble Pope expressed concern about the focus group process, that a number of people were called into a private room and it was presented “as the will of the community.”
Thank you Mr. Pope, and I’ll bet those 14 people weren’t a random sample.
I’m sure it wasn’t a random sample, but the committee ranged from people like my wife to people like Elaine Roberts Musser and Alzada Knickerbocker.
You see right there, it’s always the same core of people sitting in these groups. It would be nice to get a broader perspective of the community than always having the same people directing policy.
There’s a lot of diversity of views within that core though. I agree on the need for a broader community perspective, but given their time constraints, it probably wasn’t that feasible. The City Manager pointed out that this process actually generated more people than the community meetings in the summer/ fall of 2011. Sad as that is.
G.I. if you had been asked, would you have agreed to participate?
The reason I ask is that the road to participation is a two-way street. If you don’t let anyone know you are interested in participating it is very hard for them to know that you actually do want to contribute.
Can you name all of the 14? I’ll bet it’s the usual crowd?
I sent a request, my wife only knew a few people there.
If you review the tape, I believe you will find the intention of the comments regarding housing being a revenue generator was with respect to the “homebuilding industry” being the principal industry of the community from 1960 through 2000 – not that housing is a good revenue generator for the community.
Nobody seems to want to acknowledge that somewhat inconvenient reality, but a quick look at an aerial view of the community will clearly show that our “built assets” (all of which are courtesy of the building industry) are totally skewed to residential and multifamily home construction – not commercial, not manufacturing, not R&D and clearly not retail.
Our sales tax leakage is just as dramatically affected by the absence of a robust and balanced technology employment base and its corresponding business-to-business purchasing activity as it is by the absence of large, magnet retail power centers.
“large, magnet retail power centers” are retail dinosaurs. You aren’t going to be seeing many of those being built any more, given the changes in shopping habits of the 21st century.
Just bought a Kindle book on the train today (please do not read this Alzada Knickerbocker). I was charged no tax–either state or local (not that I would be able to see since any time tax is charged it is a lump sum). I realize that this is an issue that extends way beyond Davis but I do believe there is a fundamental unfairness to the privilege conferred on online sales to avoid collecting sales tax. I, frankly, do not understand even what current statutes are in this regard (and I do not think City staff knows either).
Where are organizations such as “leagues of cities”, chambers of commerce” and state governments in all of this? Why is there not more lobbying requiring online tax collection? I cannot believe that algorithms cannot be developed to calculate tax even at the local level, based on the zip code to which a product is shipped.
Apologies for the side rant but online sales are a part of our current shopping experience and they represent a double bind for cities: lost local businesses and lost local sales tax.
Robb, you are correct in your assumption that sales tax (and most tax) laws in California are very complicated. The cascade of rules and regulations coming from the State can sometimes be well-intentioned, but will often create strange or unintended outcomes. This is complicated by local and State-wide madates and measures. And those of you that study public policy know that much of the current framework stems from the changes enacted by Prop 13 and the follow-on initiatives.
But there is no crying over spilt milk… until the voters of the State solve some of the structural imbalances, these are the rules we work with. And though I can assure you that our staff, attorneys and consultants are as well-versed on this as any city, the State is often unsure about how much of the regulations and policies are implemented. The reason the State Board of Equalization is so large is to help navigate and jury disagreements in how the tax regs are implemented.
so we are still looking at two taxes? i don’t see how this is all going to work?
Thoughts Concerning Peripheral Development
My wife and I have lived in Davis for 40 years , and we (and many other resident)s have come to value the uniqueness and discreteness of communities within Yolo County. The buffers between Davis and Woodland to the north, Winters to the west, West Sacramento to the east, (and Rio Vista to the far south for that matter), are valued by ALL communities. Peripheral growth threatening to lead to the merging of one community into another* will always be contested in this area.
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* It is a sad state of affairs when “You are now entering/leaving____________” signs are all that mark the borders between run-on communities such as those within Sacramento County and other, more intensely developed counties within California.
” Peripheral growth threatening to lead to the merging of one community into another* will always be contested in this area.”
I share the general sentiment, but I don’t believe it’s applicable to the Ramos/Bruner site. That location, aside from being immediately adjacent to the Mace Boulevard interchange, is surrounded on the 2 non-road sides (north and east) by the Mace 391 conservation-easement-to-be. To me, that removes it from the urban-creep category, and thus renders it ideal for use as a tech park.
Well said Jim … and logical too. I just hope that the voters take the time to think it through the way you have.
Steve, I think you don’t need to worry so much. First, you have a built in moat that will prevent West Sac from encroachment. Second we have buffer agreements with Dixon, Winters and Woodland. Third, we already have 5000 acres of preserved open space in and around Davis. Third, we have the 2-1 open space to developed land requirement in Measure O.
I have lived in Davis since 1974… I guess we arrived at the same time. And I too value Davis’s “positive” uniqueness. But being a bedroom and retirement community that is lucky enough to have a university is not positive unique. Going bankrupt due to lack of tax revenue is not positive unique. Having to drive out of town to purchase so many goods and supplies, is not positive unique. Having too few good jobs and too few companies to support the community, is not positive unique.
That “sky is falling with peripheral development” energy indicates just a lack of vision for an increase in positive uniqueness and a lack of appreciation for needing a balanced and optimized economic ecosystem.
if pinkerton is gone, i will work to defeat any tax measures that dan or lucas support.
LOL. I pinged a few council members on the situation, and I heard back from three. And one of them told me that it is not a money thing… another told me that it is not a political thing… although the third inferred that it might be the lack of full council support that is contributing … it is a lifestyle thing. And that he, Pinkerton, is thinking about it and weighing it and will make a decision.
The thing about the political point. This is an experienced city manager. He has been around the block a time or two. He knows how the game is played. He knows that he is a lightening rod and scapegoat for the bad news and unpopular fiscal decisions. He knows that some of the politicians are going to throw him under the bus to appease their base. I really don’t think it plays much into his decisions. Now if three or four were clearly not in support of him, that would be a different ballgame. But of the two that have indicated a lack of support, one is leaving and we will likely have a replacement and another council member… hopefully both with a fiscal conservative bent… and then suddenly it is 4-1 in favor of the Pinkerton approach.
I really think this is just a decision to live in Davis or IV.
And putting myself in his shoes, IV would be very hard to turn down.
Here is the list of focus group members, the 14 total included Councilmembers Wolk and Lee:
Billy Doughty
Charlie Russell
Elaine Roberts Musser
Alzada Knickerbocker
Jeff Adamski
Chris Granger
Jeff Miller
Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald
Jeremy Brooks
Gregg Herrington
John Berg
Jeff Boone
That is a very diverse group … very diverse. I don’t know the first two. All the rest I know.
All nice folks, for sure, but I dont view that group as widely representative of the local community.
It leans a little heavily towards business and away from the more liberal/ progressive base
David, why is that at all surprising? I suspect that the liberal/progressive base would be more than likely to simply affirm support for the proposed added taxes. the 12 that they selected would be much more likely to challenge the thought of any more taxes at all, and as a result would be able to weigh the relative differences between the various taxing alternatives.
Said another way, would the City have really accomplished anything if it assembled a “rubber stamp” panel?
Yeah, but I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting!
Cecilia said it was pretty fruitful and that there was a lot of common ground that was reached.
I was one of the flies. I will tell you all you want to know about it.
One thing I can tell you now… there was a concerted effort by the two council members and city staff to get this group to understand the need for tax increases. And it worked.
But the group made it clear that revenue replacement was needed.
I think if the meeting included too many with non or anti-business brains, there might have been much less progress as two sides formed and egos started to trump the seeking some neutral ground.
Mike, what portions of the community are underrepresented by that group?
Mike, obviously.
He is his own group.
Councilmember Lucas Frerichs added that while there is no question that we need additional revenue via a business park …”
Wait. Didn’t Mr. Frerichs just vote against a business park in December? How is there “no question,” when all five members of the Council recently decided to keep Mace 391 undeveloped?
Maybe it is the case that the people of Davis have other priorities and this Council simply was acting on behalf of a majority of people whose greatest concern is not the tax revenues generated from industry. I can understand that, even if I don’t agree with it. But don’t tell me that Lucas Frerichs or any of his colleagues on this Council thinks “there is no question” we need a business park. That is a bald faced lie.
There are other sites for business parks, as noted by Mayor Krovoza and others during the Mace 391 debate. At least one site is likely to be on the ballot reasonably soon. So it is not true that it is “a bald faced lie.”
Per Rob White:
Don, I recently had a conversation with one of our very prominent elected leaders about farm land protection east of Mace Boulevard and the unequivocal bottom-line from that discussion was that this particular elected official would never support any form of urbanization east of Mace Boulevard. So to say “there is no question” about whether there is need for a business park flies in the face of that elected official’s statement, Mike Harrington’s post yesterday,
and a number of conversations I have had with some of the people who came to Chambers to support the placement of an easement on the Mace 391 property.
But as I made very clear above, there are other sites for business parks as well as the current site being considered east of Mace. Rich’s statement was incorrect.
Don, you are changing what both Lucas said and Rich said and I said. Lucas said that there is no question that we need additional revenue via a business park … Then Rich pointed out that there is no unanimity of either words or actions that would indicate that there is “no question.” Then after you called out Rich for his statement, I provided specific examples that confirmed that “no question” is an incorrect statement.
Your site location statement doesn’t change the fact that there are people in this community who adamently oppose with both words and actions, the generation of revenue for Davis through the creation of any business parks.
So you are right that in the revised context that you have recast Rich’s comment, it is indeed incorrect, but in the context of Lucas’ statement and Rich’s observation on that statement, it is not incorrect.
Haven’t we been through all this before?
We had an offer on the table to develop a business park on land the city already owns. The council passed it up forever in exchange for $1-million, an amount so tiny over the infinity its to cover that it’s nothing compared to what we would’ve received for the development of the site.
None of the “other available sites” have a chance to move as fast as the now-locked-up Mace site could have.
The current council members have made clear that a business initiative is not as high a priority as the issues that drove the Mace site vote.
I really can’t see Lucas or any of the rest of this council making real progress on business park development.
“We had an offer on the table to develop a business park on land the city already owns. ”
Not exactly. We had a conceptual framework for a land swap deal, but there was no developer and no plan put forward yet.
There were also significant hurdles to that particular land starting with the land grant process underway.
That doesn’t exist on the Ramos – Oates property.
There were not significant hurdles other than a Measure R vote. And that hurdle exists for any and all peripheral development. The difference with Mace 391 is that the city owned the land and could control how it was developed and reap all of the developer wealth.
Now we are stuck playing developer-vs.-city cat and mouse and in the end we will have less control and will still end up with those complaining that the developer is getting rich from our allowing him to block our views of dirt.
Don listed three other sites under consideration (Mace 200, Nishi and Sutter Hospital area). Are one of these the Ramos – Oates property to which your refer? Which of these three (or four) will not require a vote in order to develop as a business park?
My point about the city-owned property wasn’t that development wouldn’t involve “significant hurdles,” but that current city ownership would have made made the hurdles quicker, easier and more profitable for the city than any other options listed by Don.
Mace 200 is owned by Oates and Ramos. It’s two separate tracts.
According to my research, the southerly parcel is owned by the Ramos Family Trust and others. The northerly parcel is owned by Barbara Bruner, though she may have optioned it to Oates and/or Ramos.
So, the Mace 200 (Ramos-Oates/Bruner) parcels don’t have the significant hurdle of J/R vote or initiative that Don’s reading of Rob White’s description claims?
To what other “significant hurdles” were you referring regarding the city-owned Mace parcel?
Let’s be clear, a Measure R is going to be a significant lift. However, reneging on the easement would have made sworn enemies out of the open space folks, land trust folks, and open space advocates across the city. That would have been a huge hurdle. I was in favor of re-examine the parcel but that well was poisoned by the process in June and before hand.
The only difference you’ve really come up with between pursuing the city-owned Mace property and the other three prospects is the dilemma of the Yolo Land Trust good-faith efforts that would have had to set aside.
But, that was certainly doable and the sensitiveness could have been ameliorated by making the Trust whole.
My basic point is that the council could have jumped that hurdle (even with the poisoned well) IF the council really was giving high priority to business park development.
And, the open space folks you mention and no-growth advocates certainly will team up to fight on any business park vote–giving away the city property for a pittance bought zero good will for future development from these folks.
The council indicated its commitment to business park development by reviving the ITF and by directing Rob White and others to pursue specificity about the other sites. Those sites are moving forward. Nothing was going to happen with the other sites until Mace 391 was off the table. Now they are in discussion and it is likely that Ramos/Bruner will be before the voters soon. Contrary to what you and others are saying, I believe every council member is committed to presenting the voters with a business park decision soon. And your statements about ‘open space folks’ fighting any business park are not likely to be accurate. Some will, some won’t. The conservation easement on Mace 391 makes approval of Ramos/Bruner more likely, not less likely, for reasons that Jim Frame has articulated.
I think Don has made is clear that he prefers West Davis around the hospital for a business park. He says it is the qualify of the soil that drives his opinion.
I, frankly, think there are other personal reasons he opposes the east business park idea like does the certain city council member that shall not be named. But I cannot prove that.
Personally, I don’t care. Except that I have heard from a number of prospective business park residents and the commercial real estate brokers that support these potential business park residents, that east Davis is much less desirable because of access issues and lack of freeway exposure.
I cannot come up with rational arguments in support of pushing a business park that is farther away from the freeway and is less desired by the prospective tenants. I also cannot come up with rational arguments for why anyone would block business park development east of Mace when the demand has been confirmed and right across the freeway is ALL commercial development along that frontage road.
I have made it perfectly clear that a business park at the Ramos/Bruner site is fine. I don’t know why you and others persist in consistently misrepresenting my positions.
I have no idea what this nonsense is all about.
Matt, what tags are you using to produce the stylized quotes?
(This site needs a user guide!)
A “user guide” is planned once the site is optimized…..obviously not yet the case …..but being worked on steadily.
Rich provided a link when I asked a similar question awhile back, but I don’t know how to track it down again. I don’t know if it included the graphics (giant quote mark) capability.
Jim, here is that iPG noted:
http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~ricko/CSE3/ch04.pdf
Jim, [blockquote] at the front and [/blockquote] at the end However, in order to get that to display for you I replaced angle brackets (Shift , and Shift . respectively) with upright brackets. An opening angle bracket looks like < A closing angle bracket looks like >
Thanks! I didn’t realize that regular HTML tags would work.
Another thing this site could use is a preview function and/or a “sandbox” article permanently accessible from the main page so that users can experiment with formatting without cluttering up real discussions. (There used to be one dedicated to site issues, but I can’t find the link anymore.)
Getting back to this discussion late in the game: My belief is that there should be no doubt that we need a business park. However, unfortunately, I know there is some doubt; and I don’t think the actions of the Council on Mace 391 relieved me of my feeling of doubt.
I think one thing the City needs to do a better job of is putting together a good ballpark estimate of the total dollars involved in a certain type of business park. That is, if it has 4 million square feet; and it is located on the Mace curve; and its tenants are similar to Mori Seiki or Schilling Robotics; then at full build-out the City can expect X-dollars in 5 years from sales tax; Y-dollars in 5-years from property tax (including equipment that is taxed); and in 5-years City services for that business park will cost Z-dollars. Together that gets you a net income from the development.
Without knowing the net income (even if it is just a ballpark figure), I don’t think Davis voters are likely to support any peripheral development. But if they know that will mean, say, enough revenues to give Bobby Weist a gold plated Cadillac each year for the next 50 years, then there will be no doubt the voters of Davis (at least Lucas and Dan and Marikoi) well favor it.