Who’s funding SLO’s Measure G sales tax campaign? You are
Eight reasons to vote for SLO’s Measure G in a Tribune op-ed. Eight reasons in New Times. Eight reasons in the pro-G ballot argument. Crucial words are the same in all.
This was scripted. Your tax dollars financed it. Consultants prepared “eight reasons” after polling us repeatedly to discover how to sell a new tax. Thus culminates 15 years of city shenanigans to “educate” us to raise our sales tax. Now, after two half-cent taxes with built-in termination dates, the city goes for gold — a new tax three times as large and lasting forever.
The game goes like this. City staff hires polling consultants and election consultants. The pollsters find what we like our tax dollars to finance. Open space is always top, a new police station a non-contender.
Pollsters also research what city services they can threaten to cut to snare our votes.
Then come election consultants who poll-test specific wording, to find what “messaging” works best. They prepare strategy plans, “educational materials,” articles to plant as newspaper op-eds, ballot arguments and ballot wording. They imply the tax will finance things pollsters found we like, or things we’re scared to lose.
When the city places a tax measure on the ballot, the consultant’s products are handed to a “citizens committee” that runs a campaign. This year’s committee is developers and Chamber of Commerce types engaged in mutual back rubbing with city staff.
The Chamber, by going full bore pro-G, got membership of the “citizens oversight committee,” previously open to any resident, given pro-business dominance. They also asked the committee’s “oversight” be expanded from monitoring current expenditures to making long-range decisions about how future Measure G funds get spent.
“One of the most promising opportunities for this measure,” the Chamber told its members, “is the ability to bond against it for significant, large scale projects.” Funding bond debt is not one of the ballot-bait uses for Measure G.
Because consistent messaging is deemed essential, Measure G discussion gets weird.
Things get left out. For example, our current sales tax continues till 2023, so there’s no rush to replace it. But, we are told, it’s urgent we act NOW!
Then there’s Proposition 15, on the same ballot as G. Prop. 15 reassesses business properties to produce a revenue windfall for local governments and schools. This goes unmentioned since Prop. 15 undercuts messaging about G’s urgency.
After city staff bought into G, something unexpected happened — Covid-19. That, however, enabled a new claim: The city is so financially devastated we must urgently triple our sales tax forever. This is another proven election ploy, to claim the dog ate the budget.
Looking at your ballot, you’ll see it nowhere tells you you’re voting for a sales tax. You’re voting for a list of peachy-keen stuff too good to believe. Why conceal from voters they’re voting on a tax? Maybe the consultants said that would diminish chances of passage.
Sadly, in this election game, even the city’s 15 years of costly polling, trolling and manipulating is insufficient, so new ethical boundaries must be crossed. And consultants paid.
Richard Schmidt, an architect and former journalist, served on many San Luis Obispo advisory committees, including for eight years on the city Planning Commission.