Santa Paula, Fillmore and Ojai Voters to Consider Tax Measures

More police officers, firefighters and better equipment are on the wish lists of Santa Paula and Fillmore’s public safety departments, and officials hope voters will grant those and other wishes by agreeing Tuesday to a 4.5% tax on their utility bills.

And in Ojai, the city, seeking to protect itself from lawsuits, hopes residents will endorse a hike in the hotel tax that was enacted four years ago.

Proponents of the tax measures in Santa Paula and Fillmore estimate the typical household would pay an extra $4.50 to $10 per month for the new tax.

The Ojai measures are merely legal precautions and would cost voters nothing. They merely seek affirmation of a prior increase in the tax that the city’s hotels, motels and resorts charge overnight guests.

In Santa Paula, Measure L calls for a 4.5% tax on all public utilities--water, gas, electricity, telephone, cable and sewer. The money raised--about $888,000 per year--would pay for more public safety personnel and improvements to fire and police equipment.

Fillmore wants to place a similar 4.5% tax on its utilities, hoping to raise about $490,000 annually for its overburdened Fire Department and contract sheriff’s deputies.

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Santa Paula police would be able to add four patrol officers, reinstate the narcotics and gang unit, add a detective and dispatcher and establish funds to replace vehicles and buy field equipment, Chief Walt Adair said.

The Fire Department would add three firefighters and create a fund to eventually replace its four fire engines, the oldest of which is 44 years old. The tax would also provide a 10% pay raise for all police and fire employees.

Adair said his department is struggling to field calls with the same number of officers it had 25 years ago. Since then, the community has grown by half--to 26,850--and emergency calls have doubled to more than 20,000 per year. Additional paperwork and training standards have also pulled his officers off patrol, he added.

In trying to sell the tax to voters, Adair has stressed the tax would support only line personnel and equipment, not supervisors or administrators.

“The ordinance that controls the utility tax, if approved by the voters, will ensure that the money remains in police and fire and can’t be diverted for other purposes,” he said.

Fillmore also wants to beef up its fire and police protection by asking residents to approve Measure D, the utility tax. The estimated $490,000 per year that would be raised from the tax would go into the city’s general fund.

More than 60% of Fillmore’s general fund goes toward public safety, city Finance Director Michelle Lee said.

Lee estimated the typical Fillmore household would pay $9.63 per month in taxes if Measure D is approved, but said because it’s a usage tax, bills would vary.

The tax revenue would pay the salaries of two of the county sheriff’s deputies contracted by the city. Their salaries have been funded by a grant. The largely volunteer Fire Department would be able to build a second station, complete with living quarters.

Recent fire academy graduates would staff the new station as volunteers in exchange for experience and a place to live, Chief Pat Askren said. An additional two fire captains would be hired to supervise the young firefighters.

Askren said demand for fire protection and first aid has outpaced the department’s funding and that Fillmore’s development into a bedroom community has made it difficult to find volunteers who work in the city and can respond to calls during the day.

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Askren said the city is determined to keep its Fire Department a volunteer operation until at least 2010, but that it can’t do so without the utility tax.

“We have to grow along with the city so we can provide the inexpensive service that we do,” he said.

Currently, Lee said, the city spends $250,000 annually to run its Fire Department. If Fillmore were to contract with the county for full-time firefighters, that cost would jump to about $1 million, officials said.

The Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. will not take a position on Santa Paula and Fillmore’s tax measures, President Michael Saliba said.

“As long as the taxpayers are protected by a vote . . . the people in those cities can decide whether they want to have an additional rate,” he said.

In Ojai, measures I and J essentially protect the city from any lawsuits or challenges to a 1994 increase in hotel taxes. Then, the City Council approved raising the transient occupancy tax from 8% to 10%.

But because the council raised Ojai’s bed tax while statewide propositions 62 and 218 were being challenged in the courts, the validity of the hike could conceivably be challenged unless voters ratify the increase Tuesday.

Measure J retroactively approves the hike--from its passage four years ago to election day. Support of Measure I approves the tax from Nov. 3 forward.

If Measure J fails, Ojai would have to return to taxpayers the $196,000 per year it has already raised from the bed tax increase. A defeat of Measure I would lower the tax 8% and would cost the city the same amount per year in future revenues.

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City Manager Andrew Belknap wants Ojai voters to realize the two measures are little more than legal protection for the city.

“It’s not a new tax. It’s an existing tax,” Belknap said. “It’s not a tax on businesses or residents in Ojai.”

Belknap said there has been little opposition in the city to the tax, a standard expense on hotel bills in most cities.

“I’ve never received a complaint about it from anyone who’s paid or collected it,” he said.

The amount of the 1994 increase was the result of a comparison of bed taxes in other cities, he said.

“We found 10% was no more than any other place was charging,” he said.

But it’s a crucial source of revenue for the city--$1 million per year, or 25% of Ojai’s general fund.

“It’s a larger source of revenues for the city than property taxes,” Belknap said.