Arroyo Grande is the latest in a string of SLO County cities working to find out whether their residents would support a sales tax increase. For the city of Arroyo Grande, things are off to a good start.
According to the results of a survey conducted by True North Research in November 2019, roughly 55 percent of 541 residents surveyed said they would support a 1 percent general sales tax increase. About 27 percent of those supportive respondents said they would definitely support the measure, and 33 percent of all residents surveyed said they would oppose it.
Tim McLarney, president of True North Research, presented the findings at Arroyo Grande’s City Council meeting on Jan. 28, and said that even considering the survey’s 4 percent margin of error, it’s clear that a tax increase would likely be approved by the city’s voters.
“I think it’s got a better than reasonable chance of success,” McLarney said at the meeting, adding that as a general tax, the measure would only need a simple majority to pass.
Still, he said, as promising as the survey results are, the city still has work to do if it wants this measure to pass.
When presented with a list of 12 services that could be funded by the revenue raised by the tax hike, residents surveyed said they were most interested in seeing improved maintenance of streets, public buildings, sidewalks, storm drains, and parks and recreation facilities. Respondents also expressed interest in funding fire and emergency medical response services.
If the city decides to put this measure on the ballot, McLarney said it needs to be clear to voters whether these wanted services would be funded by the tax revenue.
“You don’t want to surprise them with this,” he said. “That’s usually a recipe for disaster.” Δ
This article appears in Jan 30 – Feb 9, 2020.
Not a very useful article because it does not say what the current vs. the proposed sales tax rate would be. We are currently at 7.75% with .5% of that being the city’s share. What does a 1% general sales tax increase refer to? Is it increasing the city’s share from .5% to 1 % or increasing the city’s share by .005% to make it 7.755.
This is what trickle down economics does. The feds give a huge tax break to corporations and the very rich so states get less federal tax benefits and they subtract that loss to what they pass on to counties and cities so the cities have to raise sales tax which means the lower and middle class pay a higher percentage of their income in sales tax than the rich.
🙄 Some people just need to stick to their Barista level economic understanding.
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