Pacifica Election Results: No on Measure V Takes the Lead

UPDATE: 11:45 P.M.: Measure V appears to have lost with 65.88 percent of the votes against the measure.

In Pacifica there's been dueling campaigns for and against a measure to update and expand a utility tax that could potentially raise $1.075 million to support City services.

After the "Measure V — The Great Pacifica Debate of 2013" a couple of weeks ago, the Pacifica-Daly City Democrats Club membership voted to vote yes on Measure V, which would update Pacifica's existing Utility Users Tax (UUT) to add telecommunication services without increasing the current rate.

On the other side, the Pacifica Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors voted unanimously to not support this tax measure back in late August.

Opponents of "No on V" were part of the Committee Against Higher Utility Taxes including Pacifica residents Mark Stechbart and Jim Wagner who claim that Pacifica's budget surplus is $1.4 million dollars and that Pacifica's government is always threatening the residents unless any proposed taxes by Pacifica's government are approved. 

Opponents of Measure V claim that only residents, and not visitors, would pay for this tax and that the tax revenue would go into the General Fund and be spent on salaries, with no guarantee of programs being protected. 

When asked to comment on the outcome of the election Stechbart writes in to Patch:

"The No side made the case the community should have been engaged earlier and more openly.The stealth poll and campaign work-up with $54,000 in taxpayer's money was wrong.

"Council should have had several study sessions to review the tax, presented a precise example of costs per line and per average family. 'Essential city services' was a ruse. Council could have set a companion advisory ballot question or even a study session discussion of an advisory priority listing of spending on various key programs. That would have brought clarity to the spending side. Low income residents were not exempted and Council could have made that decision out of fairness.
 
"Council chose to do none of these confidence building efforts with the voters. Then parents of school aged children realized the cells of their kids would be taxed on top of all the school tax measures and fundraisers. That did not sit well.

"The Yes side advocacy mail was vague, did not highlight any program deficiencies and did not show voters a concrete spending plan. Although the Yes side spent nearly $85,000 (the city's $54K plus Yes side $30K plus fundraising mainly from unions) to the No side $2,500, the voters did not buy the Yes side presentation."
 
What does this all mean for Pacifica? Stechbart says "engage the voters honestly, sharpen your budget pencil, hire an economic development coordinator now." 

Measure V proponents wanted the measure to pass to provide locally controlled funding for critical sources, including: fire protection and 911 emergency response, police protection, senior citizen support (including Meals on Wheels), street and sidewalk maintenance (including pothole repairs), and food and shelter assistance for struggling residents.

Kalimah Salahudin, Yes on Measure V campaign manager, says she's proud of the campaign they ran but "unfortunately the very real budget problems that Pacifica faces are not going away," she said. "Our city's leaders are going to have to make some hard decisions about our services in the future."

Measure V proponent Karen Ervin, Pacifica City Council member, said in a written statement to Patch: "It is clear that the citizens of Pacifica don't want to pay more taxes in order to address budget shortfalls or prevent additional cuts to city services. We must come together as a community to determine how best to move this city forward and plan for a financially sustainable future."

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Pacifica residents are going to the polls to vote on Measure V, an amendment to a 6.5 percent Utility Tax that would be used for city services including fire protection, 911 emergency services, police protection, senior citizen services.

The polls will close at 8 p.m. Election results will begin to be reported shortly after because of early voting.

Check back with Patch throughout the evening to see the latest vote totals.

The above results are early, unofficial tallies. Final results aren't complete for a few days.