On Election Day, an El Cajon voter was quoted about why he voted for San Diego County’s half-cent sales tax increase, which is a 6.45% increase in the tax. He stated he would have preferred Tijuana to fix the sewage problem, but “somebody’s got to do something.” This rationale was expressed by other voters interviewed after the election.
Measure B’s ballot question began with the statement, “to clean-up sewage pollution in Tijuana River Valley,” yet of every dollar the tax will raise, at most 22½ cents will go toward the sewage crisis. Within that amount, at least 20 cents must go toward engineering and infrastructure to stop the flow.
Where will the remaining 77½ cents go? Up to 60 cents can go to health care, nutrition, and family services, including 22 cents for childcare and early childhood programs. Another 17½ cents will go to public safety, wildfire prevention, and emergency response. General administration will consume 1.5%. On projected annual receipts of $400 million to $450 million, that comes to $6 million to $6.75 million a year.
Further, tax collection and citizen oversight will be paid separately, and some program funds can pay staff salaries. Of the seven cents of every dollar that is allocated to CalFresh, two-thirds can be used for staff salaries, and the 9% allocated to health care can also be used for administrative staff. The ordinance gives voters no single dollar total for all these administrative costs.
Finally, while the increase in the sales tax will continue, the San Diego Board of Supervisors may divert money allocated for the Tijuana sewage clean up to other environmental work, if the state finds that the river meets applicable water quality standards and removes it from its polluted waters list or the river is diverted directly into a wastewater treatment facility.
In my view, this was an effective scheme to raise money for other purposes by selling the tax on sewage. The spending formula was available to anyone who read the ordinance. But the voter standing at the polls saw sewage first and no percentages at all.
Anyone who voted yes believing most of the money would clean up the river was poorly informed. Measure B is a classic example of how the deceptive wording of a ballot question can result in voters making choices they otherwise may not have made. The real crime is that every time a ballot measure succeeds because of a misleading description, it only reinforces the incentive to disguise the real purpose of the measure.
John Tato graduated from Coronado High School in 1965. He retired from the U.S. Department of State in 2005.
