Almost six years after Victorville’s voters by a very narrow margin passed a measure to impose on themselves an additional one-cent-per dollar sales tax burden, three of the five members of the Victorville City Council on June 16 indicated their willingness to ask for another cent in sales tax to be borne by the city’s consumers every time they make a dollar’s worth of purchases.
A bare majority vote of the council – 60 percent – was not able, however, to put the measure before the voters in November. A request of the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office to place the proposed tax ballot measure before Victorville’s 70,572 registered voters needed to be approved by a supermajority of the council, meaning four of its five members.
In 2020, public safety advocates, in particular supporters of the sheriff’s department, which serves as the contract law enforcement agency/police department for the City of Victorville, proposed a sales tax override, the proceeds from which would be used to beef up the city’s contract with the sheriff’s department to include putting more deputies on the city’s streets.
It is a peculiarity of the California Government Code, the California Tax Code and the California Elections Code that tax measures involving a tax proposed to be used for a specific purpose must be passed by a two-thirds margin, i.e., a 66.67% supermajority. General tax measures in which there is no commitment as to how the tax proceeds are to be spent need obtain a mere majority of the vote, i.e., 50.01 percent, to pass. The sponsors of the 2020 Victorville public safety tax proposal were divided over how the measure was to be presented to the county registrar of voters and thereby to the voters, with some asserting that the measure should be drafted in such a way that voters would be assured the money was going to be used and used only for public safety purposes, such that city officials could not reroute the money for other uses or programs. Others, however, asserted that it would be doubtful, indeed unlikely, that two-thirds of the city’s residents would rally to support raising taxes. Instead, they reasoned, and ultimately prevailed, with an argument that the tax increase should be presented as a general tax so that it could garner passage, with the understanding – guaranteed on the basis of a few winks and nods from members of the city council – that if approved, the money raised through the sales tax increase would be devoted entirely to improving public safety in the city. The measure, which was given the nomenclature of Measure P by the registrar of voters office, called for the one percent increase to be levied as a general tax rather than for a specific purpose.
That November, Victorville voters approved Measure P by a razor-thin margin, with 19,280 votes or 50.22 percent in favor and 19,109 votes or 49.78 percent in opposition.
In 2022, the city said Measure P revenue had been used to add 11 sheriff’s department personnel to neighborhood patrols, speed law enforcement response times, and increase traffic enforcement.
A dual perception fueled the willingness of members of the community, pushed heavily by City Hall, to see if city residents would be willing to double the sales-tax add-on in Victorville this year. The first thing those higher-tax advocates saw is that the Victorville community, despite the enhancement in revenue the city is already getting from the Measure P sales tax add-on, is in need of yet more money for more municipal services, further public safety programs and infrastructure improvements. The second element of that perception is that the city’s residents were willing, although perhaps just barely, to increase their taxes before, and some believe average residents might be willing to tolerate an even higher surcharge when they shop.
Given the rate of retail activity in Victorville, with its present a population of 143,860 and a set of commercial subdivisions at which nearby residents in Apple Valley, Adelanto and Hesperia shop in droves, the city could expect to see its annual revenue boosted by as much as $29 million per year if another one-cent-per-dollar override were to be approved, advocates for the tax increase said. They said given that city residents went for the assurance given in 2020 that the Measure P money would be used for public safety, it would be an even bet this year that the city’s voters would welcome the tax if the community was offered an assurance the city’s officials would apply the revenue toward public safety, city services and infrastructure.
There was and still is complication and danger to the members of the city council who jumped on the tax increase bandwagon. Two of those, who were formerly highly thought of in Republican circles, after the June 16 meeting at which they gave indication they supported the tax hike, found themselves being demonized as “tax and spend” bureaucrats by at least a handful of their former supporters.
In California, local races – ones for county positions such as sheriff or member of the board of supervisors, city posts such as mayor or council member or board members of local fire, school or water agencies – are supposed to be nonpartisan. In San Bernardino County, however, political races of any kind are greatly influenced by party affiliation. California as a whole nowadays is under the sway of the Democrats, with the governor, the lieutenant governor, the state attorney general, the California secretary of state, the superintendent of public instruction, the insurance commissioner, the state controller and three-fourths of the members of both the State Senate and the California Assembly being Democrats. San Bernardino County is one of only five bastions of Republicanism remaining in the Golden State.
While Democrats in San Bernardino County solidly outnumber Republicans, the San Bernardino County GOP has consistently shown itself to be an irresistible force that has undercut its counterpart across the aisle in terms of control over local government. Of the county’s 1,234,971 voters, 477,960 or 38.7 percent are registered as Democrats. The Republican numbers are comparatively inferior, as there are 376,285 voters in the county who identify as Republicans or 30.5 percent. Still, the Republicans pack a far more powerful political punch within the 20,105-square mile confines of the county, as the GOP seemingly outhustles the Democrats at every turn – raising money, applying that money into campaigns, appealing to independent voters, carrying out polling, running campaigns, tailoring campaign material including handbills, mailers, newspaper ads, radio spots, television commercials, yard signs and billboards to appeal to the local electorate. Across the board in San Bernardino County, Republicans hold the vast majority of local officers. Four of five members of the board of supervisors are Republicans. The sheriff is a Republican. The district attorney is a Republican. The county treasurer is a Republican. In both of the county’s incorporated towns, the majority of the council members are Republicans. In 16 of the county’s 22 cities, there are more Republicans on their city councils than Democrats.
The Republican dominance of the county extends to Victorville. While Democrats convincingly outnumber Republicans in Victorville, with 28,705 or 40.7 percent of the city’s 70,572 voters registered as Democrats to the 18,103 Republicans or 25.7 percent in comparison, the Party of Lincoln is yet in control of Victorville. Four of its council members – Mayor Liz Becerra and councilors Bob Harriman, Corrinne Mora and Tiffany Gaudin – are Republicans. Councilwoman Leslie Irving used to be a Democrat but she left that party with some bitterness and great fanfare some five years ago.
Generally speaking, Republicans are hostile toward taxing, while Democrats are more accepting of handing money over to the government.
For that reason, it was somewhat jarring when Becerra, who has made her mark in politics as a no-nonsense, pro-law enforcement Republican, and Gaudin came out in favor of the second sales tax add-on measure in Victorville that was being pushed earlier this year. It was less surprising that Irving, with her Democrat roots, embraced the idea.
Members of the GOP did double and triple takes when they heard Becerra’s and Gaudin’s rationalizations for placing the tax measure on the November ballot. Gaudin acknowledged that city residents are upset at escalating costs, which in the view of some are being driven by ever-increasing taxes. At the same time, she said, residents are discontented with crumbling roadways and infrastructure. She hinted that bumping up the sales tax locals pay to make those street and highway improvements would be worthwhile. This appeared to be the major plank in her support of placing the sales tax increase before voters.
This enraged some of her Republican constituents, ones who said they voted for her because they believed she would hew to the conservative side, particularly on fiscal matters. They lambasted her for not instead taking up with state officials an inquiry into why Sacramento is withholding from local agencies their fair share of gasoline tax. California imposes a gasoline tax that is greater than any such levy among the other 49 states in the union, using the justification that the revenue stream is to be used for maintaining roads.
Gaudin next sent her fellow Republicans into orbit when she said that the increased sales tax would form the basis of a “partnership” with the city’s car dealerships by which the tax on big ticket items such as cars, SUVs and trucks would generate some “real” income for the city. Gaudin was willfully disregarding or ignorant of the reality that by layering another one percent on the price of vehicles, the city would encourage those in the market for a new car to take their business out of the city to another car dealership where added sales tax would not be cost they would need to bear, some said.
Becerra attempted dress the sales tax override up as an opportunity to let the city’s residents decide for themselves whether they want to pay more taxes than they already are. She, like Gaudin, dwelt upon the dilapidating streets residents travel on, without reference to the inflated gasoline tax her constituents are already paying.
Ultimately, Becerra and Guadin joined with Irving to support placing the measure on the ballot.
Councilman Harriman and Councilwoman Mora were not sold on the concept of increasing taxes on residents to shore up City Hall.
Mora, while stating she was in “support of the police department” and both improving and constructing “fire stations and our infrastructure,” said she could not see her way clear to increase taxes while homeowners are experiencing escalating mortgages, insurance payments and utility costs. She said it was doubtful residents would vote to support the tax add-on and that the city would have to squander $260,000 on the election to confirm what she already suspected.
Harriman said turning a wish list for improved road and infrastructure into an even more onerous tax burden than the one that already exists would prove out as a mistake.
“Victorville residents might be thinking about how they’d like to improve roads, but for a lot of people, their first thought is how to afford filling up their tank or paying their mortgage,” he said. “I can’t in good conscience support raising the sales tax this year.”
John Sackrison, the executive director of the Inland Empire Auto Dealers Association, sought to educate Gaudin and Becerra on how layering further costs on car buyers would ultimately scare potential purchasers off and result in less revenue to the city rather than more because sales of big-ticket items will take place elsewhere as buyers seek to avoid increased sales tax.
According to a survey, Sackrison said, 69.7 percent of prospective car buyers will avoid making a vehicle purchase in a city that charges a higher sales tax rate. He implied that Measure P’s 1 percent sales tax has already made a dent in car sales in Victorville.
Throughout California, the underlying state sales tax is 7 percent. In San Bernardino County, countywide consumers pay a one-half percent sales tax, based originally upon 1989’s Measure I tax override to pay for transportation projects, plus an added quarter percent county tax. That means San Bernardino County has a basic sales tax of 7.75 cents per dollar. In addition, the municipalities of Apple Valley, Barstow, Chino, Colton, Fontana, Ontario, Redlands, San Bernardino, Victorville, Yucaipa, and Yucca Valley have an added tax of 1 percent over the base rate for an overall sales tax rate of 8.75 percent.
In Montclair, host to what was formerly called the Montclair Plaza but is now referred to as Montclair Place, the city has an added tax of 1.25 percent over the base rate, making that city’s sales tax 9 percent.
-Mark Gutglueck