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Tax measure closer to ballot
by Robb Fulcher
Activists have moved one step closer to securing a public vote on whether to abolish the city’s six percent utility users tax.
Foes of the tax turned over petitions bearing 457 signatures to the city clerk’s office last week in an attempt to qualify their anti-tax measure for the Nov. 6 ballot. The petitions have been sent to Los Angeles County officials who will verify the signatures’ authenticity.
The tax foes need 279 signatures from registered Hermosa voters, or 5 percent of the Hermosans who voted in the last gubernatorial election.
The county is expected to verify the number of legal signatures within 30 days.
Kathy Bergstrom, who made an unsuccessful run for city council in the last election, is among those leading the charge to repeal the tax, which was preserved by a landslide vote on the same ballot.
Bergstrom has said the new push for a tax break was prompted in part by forgotten talk during the campaign debates about some reduction in the tax, and by "the whole atmosphere regarding utilities and power sources" in California.
"If the rates go up the tax will go up as well," Bergstrom has pointed out.
During her council campaign, Bergstrom said the tax revenues are placed into the city’s unrestricted general fund when the original intent was to use the money only for sewers, a downtown police foot patrol and enforcement against illegal "bootleg" apartments.
Proponents of the tax had argued that it is needed to fund important city services, and pointed out that 100 percent of the tax revenue is used in Hermosa Beach.
A pre-election report by City Manager Steve Burrell told municipal employees that as many as 22 percent of them could be laid off and services drastically cut if the tax was abolished.
The tax, which was instituted in 1985, makes up almost 14 percent of the city’s $12.5 million unrestricted general fund, an estimated $1.7 million this year. It is the city’s third-largest source of income following property taxes and sales taxes.
About 60 percent of the general fund money is spent on police and fire services. ER