So far, six local voter initiatives have qualified to appear on the November 5 ballot corresponding to the Presidential General Election in San Bernardino County.
One of those will be a measure to increase the tax for short-term vacation rentals such as hotels, motels, inns and Airbnbs in the county’s unincorporated areas.
In Grand Terrace, voters will consider a 1 cent per dollar sales tax override, what city officials are calling a 1 percent transactions and use tax.
The City of Needles is asking its voters to determine whether the city should impose a 10 percent tax on all marijuana related businesses.
The City of Rancho Cucamonga is turning to its residents this year to see if they will vote to approve a “transient occupancy tax,” otherwise known as a bed tax or hotel/motel tax, of 12 percent.
The City of Yucaipa is asking its residents to approve a one cent per dollar sales tax.
The Morongo Unified School District is asking the residents who live within its boundaries to authorize the district to issue and sell up to $88,300,000 in bonds, the proceeds from which are to be used for the specific school facilities projects.
The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on July 9 voted to place a measure on the ballot to change the tax rate currently imposed on short-term rentals from 7 percent to 11 percent. It must confirm that request at its meeting on July 23, one day after the registrar of voters’ July 22 deadline for measure submissions.
San Bernardino County officials say the bed/hotel tax increase will bring it into line with nearby jurisdictions that charge overnight guests more. Inyo and Los Angeles counties charge 12 percent at present, and both Orange and Riverside counties impose a 10 percent assessment.
The rate will only go up in the county’s unincorporated areas, which do not include its 22 cities and two incorporated towns. The tax increase will create a windfall of $9.4 million for the county, officials say. The county will use the money to improve county’s infrastructure and augment the sheriff’s and fire department budgets.
Grand Terrace civic leaders said they are making the request for the sales tax because a citizens ad hoc committee in the 12,867-population 3.5 square mile city “found a need to fund increased law enforcement services based on the city’s increased population, call volume, traffic, non-emergency response time, heavy reliance on mutual aid and higher-than-average ratio of calls to deputies and deputies to population.”
Needles, which in 2012 was the first of San Bernardino County’s cities to permit medical marijuana dispensaries to operate, is now one of just five of the county’s 24 cities which have decided to cash in on the financial bonanza that came with the passage of 1996’s Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use of Marijuana Act, permitting the sale of medical marijuana, and 2016’s statewide passage of Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, allowing the sale of marijuana for intoxicative purposes. The Needles City Council previously and currently is imposing fees and collecting money for the granting of permits. The measure to appear on the ballot in November, if passed, will dispense with the previously collected fees and substitute a 10 percent “excise” tax on sales of marijuana from dispensaries and marijuana shops and a 10 percent “excise” tax on the profits yielded by marijuana cultivation operations in the 31.08-square mile city abutting the Colorado River near California’s border with Arizona at the extreme east end of San Bernardino County. Alternatively, the measure would allow the city, instead of charging the 10 percent tax on cultivation operation, to impose a $1.75 per square foot monthly assessment on the space in such operations used for the growing of marijuana. Residents who abide by the state’s allowance of an individual to cultivate up to six marijuana plants for the production of marijuana personal use will not be subject to the tax.
According to Needles officials, the reason for asking the city’s residents to pass the tax measure is that, despite the city having obtained “significant revenues” under the city’s current regulation of commercial marijuana activity, there is concern that “the current gross receipts tax may not be the most appropriate basis for the city’s cannabis cultivation facilities, which could lead either to underreporting of revenue or costly auditing expenses.” City officials, however, did not explain how cannabis-related business operators could not find a way to evade reporting all of their sales or profits.
According to the language submitted by the City of Rancho Cucamonga, the city’s voters in November will determine if outsiders staying in the city overnight overnight should be referred to as “transients” and whether to amend the city’s municipal code to state, “For the privilege of occupancy in any hotel, each transient is subject to and shall pay a tax in the amount of twelve percent (12%) of the rent charged by the operator.”
Yucaipa’s sales tax proposal, which is being euphemistically referred to as “public safety and essential services protection measure establishing a one cent transactions and use tax,” comes more than four years after Yucaipa’s voters soundly defeated a request for the imposition of a half cent sales tax in the March 2020 primary election.
Yucaipa officials, who have consistently refused to consider reducing city employee salaries and benefits, say that without the infusion of revenue from the sales tax, “the city may have to close one of the three fire stations [and] will be forced to cut up to half of the city’s police officers [and] close the community pool and senior center.”
The Morongo Unified School District maintains it will use the $88,300,000 in proceeds from the bond sales it will ask the Morongo Basin’s residents to approve toward capital projects, which will qualify the district to receive State of California matching grant funds to complete educational facilities. The bond purchasers will be paid back by assessments imposed on property owners within the confines of the district, according to school officials.
The county, Grand Terrace, Needles, Rancho Cucamonga and Yucaipa measures will need to be approved by a simple majority vote, that is, at least 50 percent of those voting plus one. The Morongo Valley District initiative must garner the support of 55 percent of those voting to pass.
Any other entities seeking to place a measure on San Bernardino County’s ballot will need to act with alacrity.
The timelines with regard to measures to be placed on the November 5 general election ballot in San Bernardino County include a submission deadline of next Monday, July 22, which is also the deadline for the submission of arguments; a deadline of July 26 for the submission of argument rebuttals; a deadline of August 1 for the registrar’s office to examine the arguments; and a deadline of August 5 for the registrar’s office to examine the rebuttals. The measures are to be provided with their nomenclature, that is, their letter designations under which they are to appear on the ballot, on August 12. Two days later, August 14 is the deadline for withdrawing the measures, after which point they will be printed on ballots.
-Mark Gutglueck