>From: bmwilson@sirius.com (beth m wilson)
>Subject: funding for MUNI
>Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 22:09:37 -0800 (PST)
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>> From: Andrew Sullivan <celebes@well.com>
>> Subject: Not so fast, Marc.
>> Date: Thu, 15 Jan 98 00:02:59 -0800
>
>> (We did soundly defeat a downtown assessment district, which I also think
>> was an eminently reasonable thing to do.)
>
>Why? What was the discussion that preceded the vote? I have not followed
>this debate closely.
We have had various debates on this - it's something that media like the
Bay Guardian think would be a great idea and did in fact come before the
voters a few years ago. (It lost.)
The argument in favor, if I summarize correctly, is that downtown
businesses benefit disproportionately from Muni because their employees
(and customers, for downtown retail outlets) can come in without
requiring expensive parking spaces. For this benefit, the argument goes,
downtown businesses should be taxed over and above their normal
commitment to the city based on square footage, income, or some such.
Additionally, those in favor of such an assessment tend to think that
subsidizing Muni is a good thing and more subsidies would in fact be
better, and tend to argue also that such money would be well spent today.
I think it's a bad idea for a couple reasons. First, to say that
downtown gets a benefit that people who go downtown don't get doesn't
make any sense to me. I work downtown and take Muni - if I didn't, I
would have to pay for parking, not my employer. So Muni saves me $ (and
cuts traffic by that much too). Second, Muni serves the whole city, not
just downtown, and it is patently unfair to single out one area simply
because it is an easy target and appears to the casual voter to be a tax
s/he won't pay. SF businesses are already very heavily taxed, so any
additional tax would further tilt the economics of running a business
towards moving to the suburbs - as Chevron, for example, is preparing to
do.
But most importantly it will NEVER happen under Proposition 218. As I
understand it from our various Gov Com meetings, the law requires a
two-thirds vote for tax increases (itself very difficult to get) and also
requires that 2/3 (?) of the population being taxed receive a direct
benefit from the assessment. I find it very hard to believe that
downtown business owners would not challenge such an assessment in court
on these grounds and win - simply because many businesses don't have very
many Muni riders among their employees.
And, don't forget, some of us would like to see some accountability in
Muni before we pour any more of our tax money into it.
So it seemed to me that it would be foolish at best to endorse a proposal
that would kill any reform initiative it gets attached to and
unnecessarily divide the City. Though I can't speak for all Steercom
members, I doubt that I am alone in this assessment.
Andrew Sullivan