Marysville officials want a permanent 1% sales tax increase (7.5% to 8.5%) on the November 5, 2024 ballot. This extension of the Measure C sales tax hike was predicted by tax opponents in 2016.
Politicians sucker citizens saying sales tax increases are just temporary but once passed are rarely rescinded. The current tax rate is set to return from 8.5% to 7.5% in October 2026.
Measure C passed by 208 votes after the city’s first try (Measure W) failed by 75 votes on November 4, 2014. The Measure C political campaign was funded by David Lanza, real estate developer, and Larry Booth, the CEO of Frank M. Booth, Inc.
Mayor Chris Branscum said recently about Measure C, “As I recall, the city was on the verge of failing financially when this was originally passed. Since it does constitute approximately a third of General Fund revenues, I’m trying to imagine how the city would go as an independent entity.”
Its noteworthy that the city council In October 2006 issued $4,975,000 in bonds (certificate of participation) to acquire and develop private property on B Street at Ellis Lake. The David Lanza family received $2,839,932 for their 3.7 acres. Another $776,000 would pay the interest on the loan through October 2009, and $304,000 would cover the bonding company’s services. Another $395,000 was placed in a reserve account to satisfy bonding requirements. The remainder was to buy the adjacent properties and remove/relocate existing structures and people.
As of Oct 1, 2011 the city could not sell the property nor afford the bond payment so they refinanced, extending payments to 25 years. The property was then worth $2.5 million and the citizens would be stuck with $15-17 million in payments.
What the two city councils did to the citizens should be considered criminal. This caused the city’s financial debacle, but there were still options.
In 2010-11, officials of Half Moon Bay, CA voted to contract out their policing and recreation needs. Voters had rejected a measure to increase sales taxes as a solution to their budget woes.
The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department took-over law enforcement and the City of San Carlos assumed recreation programs. The town had already outsourced half their city staffing including much of their engineering needs and public works tasks to resolve budget troubles.
Remaining employees were required to take 28 furlough days a year. The police cost-cutting move saved the city $700,000 a year since the department accounted for a third of the city’s $9.7 million budget. The city covers 6.5 square miles with the population around 12,000.
Marysville has a similar population on 3.4 square miles and a police budget of more than $4 million or over a million dollars a mile. The police department, located across the street from the Yuba County Sheriff’s Department (YCSO) jail, is a very expensive luxury with all staff positions and technology already in place at YCSO. YCSO already performs the coroner and public administrator duties for all city deaths and serves Yuba County’s 644 square miles.
Many better-off and wiser cities contract policing with their county sheriff’s department. Nine incorporated cities within San Diego County (Del Mar, Encinitas, Imperial Beach, Lemon Grove, Poway, San Marcos, Santee, Solana Beach, and Vista) use the sheriff’s department for all municipal law enforcement and public safety services.
The Orange County Sheriff's Department has thirteen contract cities (Aliso Viejo, Dana Point, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Woods, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Stanton, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda.)
At least 521 U.S. towns and cities with populations of 1,000 to 200,000 disbanded police departments between 1972 and 2017, according to a peer-reviewed 2022 paper by Rice University Professor of Economics Richard T. Boylan. In the past two years, 12 small towns have closed their departments.
Marysville citizens pay 3-4 times what Linda residents pay for water and twice what Olivehurst and Plumas Lake people pay. Sewer is 30% higher in Marysville than Linda. Plumas Lake and Olivehurst also have lower sewer rates.
Marysville pays the highest power rates and fuel prices in the country. And now the top sales taxes in the area. Watch for school bonds from every district on the November ballot, as well. Drive through town to look. People cannot afford the cost of living here.
Finally, it’s interesting that Lanza, Booth and most all city employees don’t live in Marysville to pay the costs noted above.
(Lou Binninger can be heard on No Hostages Radio podcast, live on KMYC 1410AM 10-1 Saturdays, read at Live with Lou on Facebook and at Nohostagesradio.com)