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County property owners swatted down an attempt for a tax increase to pay for control of mosquitoes and other disease-carrying pests by a two-to-one margin, the county Clerk Recorder’s Office said.
County Clerk-Recorder Julie Rodewald told The Tribune there were 23,631 ballots against the proposal and 15,581 in favor.
About 38,000 property owners cast ballots, but the votes were weighted according to how much tax each property would have paid. By that measure, the proposal lost 340,492 to 164,645.
“The proposed vector control program will not be implemented,” Dr. Penny Borenstein, county public health officer, said in a news release.
Opponents, including rural landowners and the Farm Bureau, mounted a strong campaign against the tax.
The proposal asked property owners if they would agree to have their taxes increased to pay for more services to control pests that spread communicable disease. A single-family house on less than an acre of land would have seen an increase of $9.80 a year.
The effort to increase property taxes to cover the cost of controlling disease- carrying pests suffered a significant setback last month when the county Board of Supervisors voted to withhold its vote.
That meant the county’s $5,661 worth of weighted votes were cast neither for nor against the measure.
That amount is worth approximately 700 single family homes, Borenstein said.
The vote came after a supervisors hearing at which many county property owners and residents spoke against the proposal.
If approved, the tax would have generated $1.1 million in additional property tax revenue that would have been used mostly for mosquito control activities.
— Bob Cuddy
SLO County
Locals will stage “tea parties" throughout the Central Coast today and Saturday to protest increasing taxes and growing government spending.
The non-partisan events, similar to others held nationwide through community grass-roots movements, will be at:
• Paso Robles at noon today, Downtown City Park, Spring and 11th streets;
• Pismo Beach at 4 p.m. today, Dinosaur Caves Park, Mattie Road;
• San Luis Obispo at noon Saturday, Santa Rosa Park, Santa Rosa and Oak streets; and
• Santa Maria at noon Saturday, Pioneer Park, West Foster and South Blosser roads.
The events are open to the public.
The protests get their name from the Boston Tea Party government tax protest in 1773.
For details, visit www.teapartyday.com.
— Tonya Strickland
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