Agoura Hills : Utility Tax Won’t Be on March Ballot

Despite pressure from a local anti-tax group, the city of Agoura Hills has decided against placing on the March ballot a measure asking voters to uphold a 4% utility tax passed by the City Council in 1994.

In September 1995, the California Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a 1986 state ballot measure that required voter approval of new general and special taxes. After the ruling, the local anti-tax group demanded that Agoura Hills put the tax to voters in March.

But the city has refused, saying it wants to wait until the Supreme Court clarifies the effective date of its ruling. Anti-tax groups say the ruling is retroactive to 1986; Agoura Hills officials say the effective date is Dec. 15, 1995, when the court upheld its September ruling.

“We would like to give the citizens a chance to vote on it, but right now there is so much confusion, we don’t even know what question to ask” on the ballot measure, City Manager Dave Adams said.

By law, it is too late for the city to get the matter on the March ballot; Dec. 29 was the deadline for filing the necessary paperwork.

“They are stonewalling,” said Barbara Murphy, leader of the anti-tax group. She said her group may sue the city to force it to return to taxpayers the $1.6 million the city says it has collected since the tax was enacted.

Adams said the city has spent $1.2 million of the money, and that all the money collected since the September ruling--$390,000--has been placed in escrow.

In related news, on Friday the Sacramento-based Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation announced formation of a legal team that will soon begin filing lawsuits against selected local governments throughout the state who have refused to abide by the Supreme Court ruling.