College District Board Will Consider Letting Voters Decide Tax

Apparently reversing course, Los Angeles Community College District trustees signaled their readiness Wednesday to delay a controversial districtwide tax plan for at least a year and place the issue before voters in November.

Faced with a looming recall drive, district officials announced that the Board of Trustees will hold a special meeting Friday to consider placing the tax measure on the ballot. Several trustees said the board majority has now shifted in favor of holding an election. The board’s critics had accused the trustees of finding a legal way to evade the election requirements imposed by Proposition 13 on other tax increases.

“I’m optimistic the board will respond to honor the public’s wishes,” said trustee Althea Baker, whose shift Wednesday in favor of submitting the issue to the voters helped clear the way for the meeting.

“I think the public made a very strong case for putting it to a vote.”

The board, which governs the nine-campus, 97,000-student college district, sparked protests by voting 4 to 3 last month to begin levying an annual tax this November on 1 million properties in the county, including a $12-a-year assessment on single-family homes.

The board majority, including Baker, chose to collect the money by creating a landscaping and lighting assessment district. Under state law, the levies imposed by such districts do not require voter approval. But many critics accused the board of trying to bypass the public and of evading at least the spirit of Proposition 13, which requires voters to approve most other property tax increases.

Just last week, a motion by some college trustees for a special meeting to discuss holding an election died on a 3-3 deadlock, with Baker not voting. But with Wednesday looming as the last day to call such a meeting, Baker relented--possibly joined by another trustee, sources said.

In an interview Wednesday morning, Baker said she had been leaning toward favoring an election for some time but still had not reached a decision. But that changed by Wednesday evening, when Baker said she intended to vote Friday to let voters decide on the tax.

If board members vote as expected Friday to schedule an election, that would delay imposition of the tax that had been set to begin in November. If a majority of district voters reject the tax, it will be dead. If voters approve it, the first payments would be due in November 1997.

The district covers an 882-square-mile area of Los Angeles County from Sylmar to San Pedro, including all of the city of Los Angeles and some surrounding communities.

The board meeting is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Friday at the district’s downtown headquarters at 770 Wilshire Blvd. The proposed tax would run for an estimated 20 years and fund about $205 million of college lighting, landscaping and recreational projects.

Prior to the district’s move, a state Assembly committee in Sacramento on Wednesday approved an amendment by Assembly members James Rogan (R-Glendale) and Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills) that would mandate that the college district hold an election on the tax, requiring a two-thirds vote for passage. That measure now goes to the full Assembly.

District officials said their move toward a ballot measure was snarled by legal uncertainties about the impact of a state constitutional amendment already qualified for the Nov. 5 ballot. It would require property owner approval for all future and some existing landscaping assessments.

But because both measures would be on the same ballot, the board’s attorneys warned that even approval by district voters might not suffice to approve the tax, trustees said. That would expose the district to the risk of spending more than $1 million to hold a meaningless election.

After conversations with other board members and attorneys Wednesday, Baker said her concerns about that issue had been somewhat allayed. Baker also said she did not deliberately avoid the board’s vote last week, saying she had simply left the meeting to talk to a college administrator.