College Chief Delays Vote on Tax Hike

Seeking to avoid an immediate defeat and to perhaps return later, the chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District has postponed a scheduled vote Wednesday on a controversial districtwide property tax hike proposal affecting about 1 million parcels.

The measure, derided by critics as an attempt to evade the tax hike limits of Proposition 13, had faced defeat Wednesday with the district’s Board of Trustees apparently deadlocked 3-3 on the issue. So Chancellor Neil Yoneji canceled the vote.

Yoneji, who sponsored the plan, said he wants to wait until after July 26 when the board’s now vacant seventh seat will be filled. Cal State Los Angeles professor Gloria Romero, who won a district runoff election last Tuesday, now could cast the deciding vote.

Although there still will be some discussion of the proposal Wednesday, Yoneji’s decision ensures the tax hike cannot be levied for 1995-96 because of a Los Angeles County deadline. But he apparently intends to pursue the plan, saying in a memo that the delay will permit “fuller discussion.”

Meanwhile, in an interview Monday, Romero signaled she is open to considering the proposal. While not taking a formal stand, Romero said she disagrees with opponents’ characterization of the measure. “I do not see this issue as circumventing Proposition 13,” she said.

But she added: “That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll vote to adopt it.”

Using an obscure provision of state law not covered by Proposition 13, district officials had proposed a small districtwide property tax hike that the college board could enact without voter approval.

Officials in the nine-campus, 101,000-student district--looking for ways to solve their budget woes--have proposed raising about $9 million a year through a landscaping and lighting assessment district. Owners of single-family home parcels would pay about $4 a year.

The plan surfaced May 31 when the district’s board voted 4 to 2 to hire a consultant and scheduled the initial vote on whether to proceed for Wednesday. But that unraveled last week when board member Elizabeth Garfield, who had expressed reservations, formally withdrew her support.