By now most all of you should know that the Sacramento Bee has formally endorsed Measure T, the Fair Utility Tax Act written, qualified and placed on the November 2002 ballot by your Sacramento County Taxpayer League and the more than 15,000 signers of our initiative petition. This unprecedented endorsement should both evoke pride in every League member as validation of our conscientious and earnest effort to represent the taxpayers of our community, but also send a clear message to all NON-members that the League’s effort are not only substantive, but successful. How do I dare utter the word “success” fully two weeks before the election? Simple: the impossible has again occurred.

ON OCTOBER 22nd, AT THEIR 2:00 P.M. SESSION, THE SACRAMENTO CITY COUNCIL PASSED AN ORDINANCE IMPLEMENTING A PERMANENT UTILITY TAX REBATE IDENTICAL TO THAT INCLUDED IN MEASURE T. And it takes effect even if Measure T is defeated. Translation: Fearful of voter approval of both the rebate program, and an across-the-board tax cut to both businesses and residential ratepayers, the Council has now made the $3 million per year rebate plan included in Measure T permanent, in the hopes that voters will deny further tax relief to all other Sacramentans who pay the utility user tax, by defeating Measure T on November 5th.

In light of the Council’s last-minute actions, let’s take a step back to examine the events of the last 18 months. First, beginning in March 2001, League officials attempt to negotiate with the City over an unfair utility tax that is three times higher than anywhere else in the County. We are stonewalled, disparaged, and are the recipients of repeated bad faith by City officials. We attempt to negotiate some more...same song, second verse. We then defy every expectation (and the City’s carefully orchestrated delay tactics) and qualify the Fair Utility Tax Act for the ballot with somewhere approaching THREE TIMES the required signatures (a seemingly appropriate number considering the tax at issue). Within mere weeks of the measure’s qualification, VOILA, the City Council unanimously passes a resolution for a one-year-only rebate of the utility tax to 47,000 of the City’s poorest households...the identical proposal included in Measure T, but good for only one year rather than the permanent rebate included in the ballot measure. When this “poison pill” does nothing to stall the momentum to pass Measure T, and when the Sacramento Bee endorses Measure T, JUST FIVE DAYS AFTER THE BEE RUNS ITS EDITORIAL, THE COUNCIL PASSES YET ANOTHER RESOLUTION MAKING THE REBATE PROGRAM PERMANENT...but once again, only if Measure T is defeated.

Let me put this in words every member of the City Council can understand: Notwithstanding your unfounded attacks on the League and its members; your shameful scare tactics about devastating budget cuts; and your even more shameful campaign fundraising tactics from developers, public employee unions, and other well-heeled and well-connected beneficiaries of City taxpayer dollars and City Council votes, you and the other “insiders” are scared to death that Measure T will pass. You know that when the liberal standard bearer of our community — the Sacramento Bee — simultaneously endorses Measure T and outspokenly condemns your fiscal irresponsibility, your false campaign claims, your insidious and carefully orchestrated efforts to reward campaign contributors, and even calls into question your commitment to “progressive” causes, the prospects for Measure T’s passage grow considerably. So despite spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and convening no less than nine “budget workshops” telling voters just how dire city finances are, and how Measure T will destroy the quality of life in their community, you pass a key component of the proposal in the hope of derailing the measure itself...cynically pitting one group of taxpayers against another. How desperate!!! And hopefully for all the ratepayers of the City of Sacramento, how futile.

Absolutely nothing has changed with respect to the City budget since May 21st, when the Council passed the one-year rebate proposal. Nothing has changed since June, when the Council approved the 2002-2003 City budget. But what HAS CHANGED is the belief on the part of the City Council and their “insider” friends that Measure T WILL BECOME LAW...that David and his slingshot just might once again slay Goliath, and in a single shot provide real tax relief to every Sacramentan and impose real fiscal discipline upon an unaccountable City Council that appears to be wasting or losing money on each and every initiative it undertakes. So once again the Council — not the campaign committee, not the “independent expenditure” groups, but the elected members themselves — use the power and influence of their respective offices to seek to influence the voters as they prepare to cast their votes on Measure T.

To put it frankly, we’re not the least bit surprised. For months now, we’ve been telling anyone who would listen (and that includes the folks who buy their ink by the barrel) that the Council would be waiting with a last-minute “October surprise,” and that the rebate would be the “poison pill” of choice. So on behalf of your League’s Board of Directors, I’ll leave you and all who read this column with one final prediction: Sacramento voters will approve Measure T on November 5th. Given all that the opponents have spent and will continue to spend, it will be close, but Measure T will win, and so will the City of Sacramento and every ratepayer, resident and business when the Fair Utility Tax Act becomes law.

The Sacramento Bee endorsement of Measure T is on page 7. You’ve got to read it for yourself. Please go to our website at www.sactax.org, and click on the banner ad to see the endorsement, and the history of the tax.

Richard Mersereau