Tax extension effort a no-go

A recent campaign by Scotts Valley City Councilwoman Stephany Aguilar to collect the 1,400 signatures needed to ask voters to continue the city’s quarter-cent sales tax past March 31 appears to have come up short. At least for now.
The deadline to request a special election passed Monday, Feb. 14, without Aguilar filing the petition with the required signatures with the city.
Besides collecting names outside local supermarkets, Aguilar and several prominent community members sent a mailer to voters in the city asking for help to put the initiative on the ballot. The mailer showed the language of the ballot measure and a four-page explanation of the tax and included a postage-paid envelope.
“I want to thank the community of Scotts Valley for its kind and thoughtful support,” Aguilar said in a statement this week. “We may attempt to bring back the quarter-penny sales tax during the 2012 presidential election.”
The councilwoman declined to say how many signatures she and her supporters had collected since launching the effort in September.
Aguilar hoped to keep on the books a quarter-cent addition to the city’s sales tax that voters approved as part of Measure C. The sales tax took effect April 6, 2006, and initially added a half-cent to Scotts Valley’s sales tax for three years after its approval. The added tax dropped to a quarter cent in 2009 and will expire March 31.
Sales tax in Scotts Valley totals 9.25 percent. It will drop to 9 percent beginning April 1.
Mayor Dene Bustichi said the council was divided on Aguilar’s proposal.
“The problem with what happened for Stephany is that you need to go into something like this united,” Bustichi said, noting the council’s 4-1 vote against putting the initiative on the ballot, which led to the need to collect signatures.
“The rest of the council felt we had enough in reserve and, at this time, we don’t need the tax. At the same time, in the future, we may need (the tax) if things don’t work out.”
Bustichi also noted the importance of approaching opposition groups, such as the Senior Coalition, to find out what provisions would be needed to pass a tax.
Scotts Valley has millions of dollars in reserve, and city leaders hope to collect more than $2.1 million from a tax lawsuit with Santa Cruz County.