Features

Mayor Tom Bates’ Advisory Task Force On City Revenue has recommended that the mayor should support a $250 per year parcel tax increase referendum to be placed on the March 2004 ballot in order to make up for falling city revenues—the same type of bond measure called for in a recent survey of Berkeley voters. 

If accepted by the mayor, the recommendation is scheduled to be presented to City Council at its Oct. 14 5 p.m. public working session. 

Representatives of the city manager’s office were scheduled to meet with City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque immediately after the task force meeting to work out the legalities of the parcel tax, and Mayoral aide Cisco DeVries said he expected to have a detailed, written task force report on bond measure recommendation available to the public by the end of next week. 

The City Revenue Task Force was assembled four months ago by Mayor Bates to determine what, if any, new taxes are needed to make up for what has been projected as a $27 million budget shortfall by 2008. 

The task force is chaired by former Assemblymember Dion Aroner and includes, among others, energy consultant Cynthia Wooten, Solid Waste Management Commissioner Jay Miyazaki, and political activist Dan Lindheim, as well as mayoral aide DeVries, Deputy City Manager Phil Kamlarz and City Clerk Sherry Kelly. 

The task force is scheduled to dissolve once a formal report is delivered to the mayor. 

The panel is also recommending that the March bond measure ballot measure include a spending oversight committee, a five-year sunset provision, and concentrate specifically on preventing cuts in the city’s fire services. 

Task force members stressed that they did not think Berkeley voters would support a new tax if it did not include some guarantee that service levels would not be reduced. 

The group decided not to wait to put the bond measure on the November 2004 ballot after learning that it would conflict with other bond measures scheduled for that date. 

The task force also discussed other methods of raising funds to meet the immediate budget shortfall besides a parcel tax, including seeking revenues from UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Laboratory and raising other city fees, but decided that these should be part of a long-term discussion of the health of the city’s finances. 

The task force will meet again Oct. 23 at 2:30 p.m. in the Milvia Street City Office Building. With the completion of its bond measure recommendation to the mayor, the task force is scheduled to disband following the Oct. 23 meeting.