Polling shows muddled outlook for Santa Rosa tax measures

Santa Rosa voters likely would support extending the quarter-cent sales tax passed in 2010 to boost the city’s post-recession budget, but they are less inclined to change another tax that props up police and fire departments - at the expense of other city services, according to some critics.

Those are the key findings of detailed polling commissioned by the city recently in an effort to gauge the electorate’s appetite for local tax measures in the coming years.

It means voters this fall will likely be asked to extend the first tax, Measure P, now set to expire in 2018. But whether that is paired with a revision to the public safety levy, Measure O, remains unclear.

“I continue to be in a quandary on how to move forward,” Mayor John Sawyer said after the poll results were discussed Tuesday by the City Council.

Sawyer said it was frustrating that the results did not point the council toward a clearer course of action.

The dilemma reflects the council’s years-long struggle to strike the right balance between support for public safety, which absorbs 58 percent of the city’s general spending, and numerous other services like parks and roads.

By one measure the public was evenly split on the issue of whether to reform the portion of Measure O that contains a minimum funding formula for public safety departments. That mandated funding level increases with inflation even when the city budget slumps.

Forty-six percent of residents polled said the formula should be left alone, 46 percent said it should be updated, and 9 percent said they didn’t know. The total is more than 100 percent likely because of rounding by the pollsters.

“It’s clear as mud here,” said Curt Below, senior vice president at FM3, the Oakland-based research firm that handled the polling.

Councilwoman Julie Combs said that finding “pretty clearly shows a tale of two cities.”

A council subcommittee that studied the issue recommended pegging public safety departments’ budget levels not to the consumer price index, as is the case now, but to their current percentages of the city budget. “This will allow those budgets to increase when times are good, and the baseline will be reduced when times are bad, like all other budgets in the city,” said Councilman Chris Coursey, a proponent of overhauling Measure O.

But a series of polling questions meant to assess support for such changes showed, after some opposing arguments were floated, support falling 10 points to 54 percent.

Coursey took issue with one of the critical statements posed in the poll, namely that public safety budgets would go down as a result of the amendment. He called that an “outright falsehood.”

Nevertheless, assuming a simple majority would be required to amend the measure and a 7 percent margin of error for the poll, campaign consultant Catherine Lew said she would not recommend asking voters to amend Measure O.

The polling results for Measure P, the tax supporting the overall city budget, were more promising. After three rounds of questions meant to mimic the pros and cons of a political campaign, 71 percent of the 400 voters contacted said they would support extending Measure P, which raises about $8 million per year for general city services.

There was even support by 59 percent of voters contacted for doubling the tax to half a cent, equating to $16 million per year, according to the polling.

But Terry Price, the political consultant who helped then-Mayor Susan Gorin get Measure P passed six years ago, warned against trying to renew Measure P - a proposal passed during dire budget straits - without also tweaking Measure O.

“To not address Measure O when you are trying to renew Measure P is a nonstarter,” Price said. “It’s not ‘No.’ It’s ‘Hell no.’”

He and others pointed out that several ballot measures in Sonoma County in recent years have failed despite having promising polling results.

City Manager Sean McGlynn stressed that whatever the council decides, it needed to do so unanimously.

“As we drift further and further from consensus, the challenge only gets more and more difficult,” he said.

The council is slated to make a decision on the issue July 19.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.