South Pasadena Scraps Proposal for Special Election on Utility Tax

The South Pasadena City Council has scrapped plans to put its existing utility tax to voters in December at a special election after city officials conceded they overlooked a November state ballot initiative that, if successful, would outlaw such tax votes except at regular local elections.

Declaring their ignorance of Proposition 218, the council late Wednesday unanimously reversed a decision of two weeks ago and tentatively gave the go-ahead to combine the tax vote with council elections next March. The current 5% utility tax expires in July.

“We were all totally ignorant of 218,” Mayor Dorothy Cohen said.

The council reversal came after City Atty. Francisco Leal discovered the proposition, which would prohibit tax issues from appearing on special election ballots. He warned that if the initiative is successful, the December election on the tax could easily be voided by a challenge in the courts.

“There is the possibility at any time . . . a taxpayer could come back and say you are not supposed to enact a tax at this time,” Leal said.

The issue was uncovered during research into another problem with the December election.

Earlier this month a divided council approved the December election based on the recommendation of a tax advisory committee. But the city attorney admitted that the advisory panel had met numerous times in violation of California’s open meetings law.

Council members, as they took the 3-2 vote, agreed the election would be scrapped if the city attorney determined that the violations of the law by the council-created Utility Tax Ad Hoc Committee would make the election result subject to a successful legal challenge.

Leal reported Wednesday there was no real problem with the committee’s violations because the panel only advised the council, but Proposition 218 could produce a legal challenge.

That was enough for council members--and the ad hoc committee, which supported a December special election--to abandon the idea.

“There is no way we want the vote in December because if in fact the initiative passes on the third of November, we the people of South Pasadena will lose $25,000” that the special election would have cost, said Ted Shaw, former mayor and ad hoc committee chairman.

Council members Paul Zee, Wally Emory and Cohen, who voted for the December election two weeks ago, agreed. “Unfortunately, this information was missing. . . . The whole scenario has changed,” Zee said.

The decision brought smiles to the faces of council members Dick Richards and Harry Knapp, who had opposed the December date because of the extra costs.