Now that you have your ballot, you see that you have only one B'game-specific vote to cast–to increase (or not) the B'game business license fees. (District 5ers also have a city council non-race to vote in since Rachel Cyr withdrew, but after the ballots were set.) I'm of mixed mind on Measure X, and not because of a reflexive dislike of tax/fee increases although I do have that too. I get that licenses have been $100/yr for every business forever, but I think the city missed the mark at the high-end of the tax schedule. You won't find it anywhere but on the city site here, so I will retype the proposed schedule:
Gross receipts of the business Annual license fee
< $250K $200
$250K to $1M $300
> $1M $750
That's it. You can gross $1.25M or $125M and you pay the same amount. Or $1.25B, looking at you Meta/Facebook/Oculus. Not sure why there isn't a $20M or $40M level with a good-sized number attached to it. Many cities take a percentage of gross receipts–I'm not in favor of that, but shouldn't some of the big companies adding crushing density and traffic to our town pay more than $750?
The other aspect of the measure that needs mentioning is the last bit of text which reads "….until ended by voters, requiring audits and all funds staying in Burlingame". Sounds innocuous enough, but the Oct. 10 Daily Post ran a frontpage article titled "Ballot wording called misleading". It describes a Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury report that calls out several ballot measures' language that may be misleading:
That included phrases such as "until ended by voters," which falsely implies that the measure includes a way for voters to repeal it later, the grand jury said. The grand jury report, released on Friday, pointed to other deceptive "tricks and tactics" used in ballot questions, such as adding the feel-good phrases like "all funds spent locally".
Whooops. Measure X is two-for-two. We shall see if anyone decides to use the Santa Clara findings to challenge the result here in B'game.
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