Agoura Hills : City Decides to Put Utility Tax on Ballot

The city of Agoura Hills, facing the threat of a lawsuit by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., has decided to put on the November ballot a 4% utility tax passed by the City Council in 1994.

The council voted 4 to 0 Wednesday to pass the resolution. Fran Pavley was absent.

Mayor Ed Corridori said he voted for the resolution not because he feared a lawsuit, but to help resolve fiscal uncertainty brought on by a California Supreme Court ruling last year.

The ruling upheld the constitutionality of a 1986 state ballot measure that required voter approval of new general and special taxes. The taxpayer association recently began writing to nine government entities throughout the state threatening to sue if they did not comply with the court’s ruling.

The City Council has resisted pressure from a local anti-tax group to put the measure on the March ballot, saying the ruling’s effective date is uncertain. But the city has decided it can’t wait any longer for clarification, Corridori said, because for budget-planning purposes, it needs to know if it can spend the $1.6 million collected since the tax was implemented. Putting the issue to the voters, he said, will answer that question.

But the resolution did not satisfy anti-tax activist Barbara Murphy, who wants the city to call a special election. However, Jonathan Coupal, the association’s director of legal affairs, said a November ballot question was acceptable to his group.

Corridori said he would not be opposed to a special election, although it would be costly.

“That would help us get some answers faster,” he said.