Help the city decide how to spend Measure V funds
The city of Healdsburg is asking for resident input on how to spend more than $1 million in sales tax funds.
In 2012, Healdsburg voters, by a 55-45 percent margin, approved a half-cent sales tax, to help fund city services. Measure V, as it was called on the ballot, raises more than $1 million a year. Revenues go up and down along with sales tax collections.
The Measure V sales tax is a general tax, so there is no restriction on its use, but it was sold to voters as a way to shore up weak budgets in the recession and subsequent city councils have annual discussions on how closely to adhere to the original intent.
When the tax was proposed, then-Healdsburg City Manager Marjie Pettus told the community that the two most pressing needs were public safety and street repairs. As the November 2012 vote approached, the city added two more categories of spending that were also falling short, economic development and maintenance of city facilities.
For the first few years of Measure V’s life, city councils colored inside the lines with the four spending categories, but as the city began to recover from the recession and as housing costs skyrocketed, the council experimented with spending some of the funds on affordable housing, arguing that conditions had changed and that the need for housing support was greater, given rebounding funding for streets and public safety from other sources.
This year, the city council veered back to the original four spending priorities and a resident survey is underway. While admitting that it’s not a scientifically accurate survey, the council and city staff uses the survey tool as a way to be more accountable to the community and to gauge resident priorities from year to year.
At the January 8 city council meeting, the council wrestled with whether to include housing in the survey. Mayor Brigette Mansell argued that “housing is connected to economic development” and public speakers agreed, but the other councilmembers, while pledging support for affordable housing, wanted to focus the survey on the original spending priorities approved by the voters.
“It’s important to maintain the integrity of the original focus of the tax,” said councilmember Joe Naujokas.
A copy of the survey will be mailed soon in Healdsburg utility bills. To take the survey online, in English, visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NNZ27LF. A Spanish language version is online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NGDR8PX.
