Special May 7 election for Measure A will depress turnout while deceptive ballot language hides impact.
Officials of a small South Bay high school district have put their thumb on the election scale by calling a special tax election for May 7.
Sadly, they have done just the opposite. Voters should not stand for this assault on electoral integrity. They should reject Measure A.The district’s purported reason for holding a special election essentially amounts to a failure to plan ahead. In their explanation to us, they said they did not want to rush to meet the deadline for the March ballot, and waiting until the November election would not have allowed them time to make budget adjustments if voters rejected the replacement tax.
To understand the magnitude of the turnout difference, consider that in that special May 2016 election, when the last parcel tax was the only thing on the ballot, 11,819 voters cast ballots. But in the November election that same year, at least 19,685 voters participated in the school board election. That’s 67% more voters.
The ballot wording, with its deliberately tortured sentence structure, never mentions the total $128 amount of the tax, never uses the word “increase” although that’s exactly what this measure would do to the existing tax, and never clarifies that the “annual adjustment” would be a further increase.The Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District also taxes property owners to pay off school construction bonds. The current tax rate for the school bonds is $13.70 per $100,000 of assessed value.
Saratoga Union School District property owners pay a $68 parcel tax plus $60 per $100,000 of assessed value for construction bonds. Loma Prieta Joint Union Elementary District property owners pay $498 for annual parcel taxes, plus $49 per $100,000 of assessed value for construction bonds.
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