The twin foregone conclusions – authorizing a half-cent sales tax increase with a termination point (10 years) to be placed on the November ballot – formed the most easily agreeable portion of last night’s City Council meeting.
That officially made a singular success of City Hall’s five-week rally to convince the community that a revenue bump was urgently needed to resolve the $8 million structural deficit.
That it was achieved without detectable pushback was almost miraculous in a hyper anti-tax era.
However, Council members were unable to resist the temptation to tack on extraneous touches that, realistically, will be out of their hands by the time the calendar and ending date coincide. All five Councilpersons either will be basking, or fidgeting, in retirement by the early ‘20s.
The mud-splattered part of the evening was a lengthy, meandering, wind-driven, ultimately meaningless, debate after the crucial parts were in place. Sometimes speaking circularly, members wrestled over how to effectively juxtapose communal support and the 2023 expiration date – if it passes – with a municipal election to extend the levy, if desired, in April 2022.
Already, there is opposition to the Council’s ballot proposal.
Minutes after the Council unanimously endorsed the half-cent tax hike for a decade, community activist Frank Campagna criticized half of the terms, saying 10 years was too long.
Asking for Trouble?
When addressing the Council earlier, he had joined a minority favoring a three-quarter-cent increase, urging a much shorter sunset period, five years. “The selling point of a sunset,” Mr. Campagna said after the meeting, “is to convince voters to support it.
“They are not going to vote for something because it’s going to be around ‘only’ 10 years. Five years is a better selling point. After five years, the Council can extend it, ad infinitum, if they wish. To put 10 years on the ballot destroys the advantage a sunset is supposed to give you.
“As has been pointed out, the Council can cancel it anytime they want. They can extend it any time they want. Why not do something that will create an incentive for at least some people to vote for it?”
Mayor Andy Weissman and freshman member Meghan Sahli-Wells were the strongest proponents of the half-cent-and-10-years package. Ms. Sahli-Wells even suggested 15 years as an outer possibility.
Mr. Weissman has said numerous times he has been constantly wrestling with himself over the precise terms, balancing City Hall’s need to close the structural deficit gap, which a half-cent would accomplish, against residents’ desires. “By far, this is the most difficult decision of my four-plus years on the Council,” he said.
Clarke’s Thoroughness
Reading from a prepared text, first-year member Jim Clarke, who polled 140 constituents and received 79 replies, called the outcome “mixed.” He proposed a three-quarter-cent increase with a sunset period, probably five years.
Concerned about “biting off more than we can chew” by adopting Mr. Clarke’s plan, Mehaul O’Leary cautiously suggested a half-cent without a sunset.
While supporting a three-quarter scheme, Vice Mayor Jeff Cooper said that “I really have deliberated the last couple of months. I have been searching for clarity, and the data is not conclusive.”
Emerging steadily as a leading thinker on the dais, it was Mr. Clarke who made the motion for a half-cent-and-10, seconded by Mr. Cooper.
It looks as if the City Council soon will get help, or at least company. Former City Treasurer Crystal Alexander suggested appointing a public financial advisory committee to assist elected officials. The idea caught instant fire, up and down the dais.
Ms. Sahli-Wells, its chief advocate on the Council, urged her colleagues to agendize the committee’s formation “sooner rather than later.”
