Santa Ana OKs Utility Tax Hike to Pay for Jail

Declaring an assault on crime, the Santa Ana City Council unanimously approved construction of a $105-million jail and police headquarters Tuesday and a 1% utility tax hike to help pay for it.

The unanimous vote came after dozens of residents told of increasing assaults and burglaries in their neighborhoods and said the tax hike was a small price to pay for safety.

“Raising taxes is at times dishonest, immoral and dirty,” resident Jose Vargas said. “But for the security of my family, the pride of my city and the chance to have a first-class police station . . . this time, but only this time, please take my money.”

But dozens of residents said the utility users tax hike, pegged as the main means of financing the jail and police administration building, would be a hardship for Santa Ana’s low-income population and should be put to voters.

“I don’t believe that now is the appropriate time to impose another tax increase, particularly without it going before the voters,” community activist John Raya said. “Yes, it is only $18 more on your utility bill, but the gasoline tax was just $40 or $50 a year for an average driver . . . so what’s the big deal? Pretty soon it adds up to a lot in taxes that people have absolutely no voice in. That’s what’s fundamentally wrong in all this.”

City officials countered that the increase from the existing 5% utility tax on gas, electricity, telephone and water bills to 6% is small--$1.50 a month or $18 a year for an average family. Needy families would qualify for exemptions, as they do now.

Councilwoman Lisa Mills said there were few alternatives.

“There isn’t a magic source of money in this town. I have to support (the tax increase) because I don’t see any other source of financing,” she said.

Putting the matter to voters would leave the City Council in a precarious position the next time they needed to increase revenue, said Rod Coloma, executive director of finance and management services.

“If you say you have to go to a vote of the people every time you want to change the utility user tax, you’re setting up a dangerous precedent,” he said. “It’s one of the revenue-raising abilities that the City Council has, just like if they wanted to raise fees on dog licenses.”

The tax hike would generate an additional $3.2 million annually for the city’s general fund, he said.

That boost is key to financing the proposed jail and police administration building, which officials said are sorely needed to keep Santa Ana’s misdemeanor offenders from passing through the county jail’s revolving door and back onto the streets.

The administration building, they add, has been in need of expansion since the 1970s.

“Our facility that we have here is full to the max. We actually occupy two floors of City Hall because we don’t have enough space for our personnel,” Lt. Robert Helton said.

Helton said the new jail could hold sentenced prisoners for up to a year and would greatly enhance community policing efforts. A 48-cell temporary facility that opened last year only holds prisoners until they are arraigned.

“We have to have a way of ensuring that people who commit crime in this community are removed from the street and kept in custody, even if it means at the local level, for more than a couple of hours,” Helton said.

The utility users tax increase “is the only possible vehicle for funding a project of this size,” he added.

Located on an eight-acre parcel near the Santa Ana Municipal Stadium at Civic Center Drive and Shelton Street, the project includes a 236,000-square-foot administration building designed to accommodate expansion through the year 2050; a four-story jail for 420 inmates with a kitchen and laundry; a garage; and a 900-foot tunnel linking the jail with the Orange County Intake/Release Center.