Likely 2020 San Diego, Statewide Ballot Measures Are Taking Shape
Will Yes! For a Better San Diego’s spoonful of sugar make convention center expansion medicine palatable for voters?
Are Uber and Lyft crazy enough to do battle with Assem. Lorena Gonzalez?
Will the Evil Democrat Idea of taxing business property fairly take grandma’s house away?
I dunno.
Let’s take a look at March primary ballot measures and preview what’s coming in the November 2020 general election.
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A grand coalition of San Diego’s movers and shakers gathered on Thursday outside the Convention Center to endorse the Yes! For a Better San Diego initiative campaign.
“I’ve never seen a coalition this broad and this diverse for a ballot measure in any race I’ve been involved in over 20 years,” said Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who has made convention center expansion his legacy project..
The campaign is marketing itself as offering a step up for efforts to combat homelessness, a job creator via new waterfront construction, and a means to increase the pace of needed street repairs.
Business, civic, and labor leaders literally lined up alongside homeless advocates to voice their support for the effort, which would increase the tax on hotel stays in varying amounts, depending on their proximity to the Convention Center. The top 15.75% rate would be comparable to what’s charged in other major convention hosting cities in California.
The bottom line here is that the business community’s desire for an expanded convention center needs to be packaged with sweeteners to gain the two-thirds public support needed for a tax increase.
If you have the feeling you’ve seen this before, you’re right. Much of the same coalition tried and failed to place a similar measure on the 2018 ballot. A much ballyhooed signature gathering campaign unexpectedly fell short, and Mayor Kevin Falconer's attempt to convince the City Council to revive the effort failed.
The effort to expand the waterfront facility dates back to 2008, when the Convention Center began to pay the lease owners of the neighboring Fifth Avenue Landing property in anticipation of expansion.
Following a state court’s rejection in 2014 of a fee/not a tax scheme to finance the project, discussions began about placing a hotel tax increase in front of voters. Similar measures, albeit with differing rationales, have consistently been rejected by voters in the past two decades.
The 2017 plan involved bundling Convention Center expansion funding with monies for homeless programs and road repairs. There was significant opposition --at least in terms of noise generated-- from some homeless advocates and Democrats who objected to the squishiness of the projected expenditures.
A new and improved plan for the 2020 ballot addresses some of those issues, including a promise to invest more money for homelessness services, housing and other initiatives. It received a boost when the City Council, persuaded that more needed to be done sooner for homeless humans, put the measure on the March 2020 ballot.
A problem with the numbers being bandied about is that they’re projections. The promise of $6 billion in additional revenues looks ahead 42 years for fruition. $3.5 billion is promised for the convention center expansion, $1.8 billion would go to homeless efforts, and $551 would be targeted for road repairs. The 2020 measure is improved, backers say, because it frontloads homelessness dollars over the first five years.
From the Union-Tribune coverage:
While efforts to expand the city’s convention center are what originally drove a ballot measure to raise the hotel room tax, San Diego’s growing homeless crisis has become an increasingly larger focus of the March initiative. A recently completed Community Action Plan on Homelessness concluded that it would take close to $2 billion over 10 years to provide the kind of housing and services that could have a major impact on San Diego’s homeless population while also preventing others from falling into homelessness.
Homeless advocates concede that the money that would be generated by the March ballot measure is not enough to adequately address homeless issues, but it is far better than what exists now. It is estimated that in the first five years the hotel tax would raise $147 million for homeless housing and programs, but it would be up to the City Council to determine exactly how the money would be spent.
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Another ballot measure seeking to place a $900 million affordable housing bond on San Diego’s November 2020 ballot is working its way through the City Council.
In the wake of the recently completed Action Plan on Homelessness, the measure's main proponent, the nonprofit San Diego Housing Federation, is recalculating its planning, which originally estimated the creation of roughly 7,500 affordable housing units geared toward veterans, seniors, people with disabilities, low-income families and homeless people.
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Also in March, 2020-- Gov. Gavin Newson has signed legislation giving primary voters a chance to approve $15 billion in bond funding to renovate aging school facilities.
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Looking forward to the November 2020 statewide ballot, it appears as though an unusually low number of ballot measures are headed for general election. While 21 measures are at some stage of trying to qualify for the ballot, only about 6 have a real shot of winning a spot on the ballot, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Here are the measures you’ll be likely to see:
Rolling back provisions of Proposition 57 to include keeping more people behind bars. A coalition of law enforcement and crime victims are going to make the argument that many prisoners were improperly classified as non-violent. The measure would also increase penalties for some thefts and expand DNA collection to include crimes like shoplifting and domestic violence. Look for lots of scary tv ads.
Yes or no on the abolishing of cash bail. A yes vote equals affirmation of a 2018 law to replace cash bail for criminal defendants with a new risk assessment system administered by California judges. The bail bond industry, which spent millions to qualify the measure, will be arguing for a ‘no’ vote. This is another case where winning means scaring the crap out of voters.
Split the tax roll for Proposition 13. Passage of the measure in 1978 limiting property tax increases fundamentally changed California. Tax revenues traditionally used for for schools and government services were reduced. Big corporations took advantage of loopholes in the law that allowed them to pay taxes on less than fair market value. Liberal groups, led by unions, are vying to close that loophole; business entities are ready to respond with threats of an economic apocalypse. Many of the Democratic candidates for President have endorsed this measure.
Rent control redux. Michael Weinstein, the Los Angeles activist whose AIDS Healthcare Foundation bankrolled a losing rent control effort in 2018, is collecting signatures on another effort to downsize a 1995 state law placing limits on when local governments can place strict caps on rent costs. Gov. Newson just signed a bill limiting some rent increases. These folks want more.
A ballot measure to strengthen consumer control over health and financial data, along with information regarding children. San Francisco developer Alastair Mactaggart used an initiative he qualified for the ballot to convince the Legislature to enact a far-reaching privacy statute. The final version of law didn’t go far enough for Mactaggart, so he’s going to the voters.
Rules of the road for the gig economy. Uber, Lyft, and Door Dash have each banked $30 million to fight Assem. Lorena Gonzalez’ AB 5 codifying the court decision about the differences between contractors and employees. This is likely to be the most watched ballot measure battle in the country. Just remember that Gonzalez doesn’t lose many fights.
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