City Seeks to Reduce Business License Fees
City leaders, who don’t want Los Alamitos’ businesses to bear any more hardships during lean times, plan to put a measure on the November ballot asking voters to reduce licensing fees.
Council members this week unanimously agreed to offer a ballot measure that would eliminate the 5% annual increase in business licensing fees that voters put into place in 1988. The council instead proposes to increase the fees according to the annual cost-of-living index.
“If you keep adding 5% year after year after year, pretty soon you’ll have a 50% increase,” Mayor Robert P. Wahlstrom said. “That’s too much.”
Voters approved the 5% increase when Los Alamitos’ business licensing fees were much lower than the county average, Wahlstrom said.
By law, the city must send the issue back to the voters to change the existing measure.
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