Monday, August 26, 2019

Ongoing Legislative Update - ACA1 and new taxes

I have been following a few ongoing legislative items that may be relevant to folks around town.

Very telling regarding the direction that some of our state legislators are heading. Co-authored by State Assembly member Chiu and State Senator Wiener, ACA-1 proposed to make it easier for the legislature to raise taxes. Our own State Assembly Member Grayson also voted in favor of this.

If passed, it would provide an exception to the 1% base property tax if the money is used for affordable housing, among other items, allowing the state to levy even greater property taxes to fund affordable housing. Possibly even more egregious, ACA-1 would reduce the threshold of voter support needed to raise and create new taxes. Currently it takes 2/3 voter approval, but Chiu and Wiener want to lower that threshold to 55%.

State Assembly Member Chiu and State Senator Weiner are the same folks who, with AB1487, want to create a new quasi governmental entity to place new bond measures and taxes on the ballot to fund affordable housing.

In one hand, they want to be able to place new bonds and taxes on the ballot, and in the other hand they want to make it easier for those new taxes to pass. If these items come to fruition, folks in Clayton and all across the region will pay more to benefit the folks in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. This is what stacking the deck looks like.

If this is of interest to you, reach out to your local elected state legislators and let them know what you think.