Coast Life Support District Parcel Tax, Measure J (April 2014)

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A Coast Life Support District Parcel Tax, Measure J ballot question was on the April 8, 2014 election ballot for voters in the Coast Life Support District in Mendocino County and Sonoma County, California, where it was approved.

Measure J had the following provisions:

• It repealed an existing district special parcel tax of $18 per unit.
• It replaced the former tax with a special parcel tax of up to $74 per unit in order to expand the availability of urgent medical care services.
• It raised the districts limit on annual tax revenue to an amount equaling the revenue from the $74 per unit tax rate. This last clause simply made it legal for the district to actually collect the tax revenue authorized by the approval of Measure J.

A two-thirds (66.67%) vote was required for approval of this measure.

Election results

Measure I
County:	Yes		No
	Votes	%	Votes	%
Sonoma County	691	74.50%	236	25.50%
Mendocino County	740	64.40%	409	35.60%
Totals:	1,431	68.9%	645	31.1%

These results are from the Mendocino County elections office and Sonoma County elections office (dead link).

Text of measure

Ballot question

The question on the ballot:

“

Shall the Coast Life Support District adopt an ordinance (1) repealing the existing special tax of $18.00 per unit of benefit; and (2) replacing it with authorizing a special tax not to exceed $74 per unit of benefit for expansion of urgent medical care services availability, which charges shall be established by the Board of Directors of the District; and (3) raising the appropriations limit of the District to permit spending of the revenue raised by the tax?

”

Full text

The full text of the legislation that was enacted by Measure J:

“

SECTION I. PURPOSE AND INTENT It is the purpose of this Ordinance to authorize the levy of a special tax on parcels of real property that are within the Coast Life Support District, established by Chapter 375, Statutes of 1986, in order to augment funding for expanding the availability for provision of urgent medical services. This is a special tax within the meaning of Section 4 of Article XIII A of the California Constitution, and is being enacted pursuant to the authority and procedures of Chapter 375, Statutes of 1986 and Government Code Section 50077. This tax is based on the use or the right of use of each Assessor's parcel; and is based, to the extent practical, upon the costs of providing urgent medical care services associated with each parcel, its use and the improvements thereon. Since this tax is not an ad valorem tax, the exemptions contained in or authorized by Article XIII of the California Constitution shall not apply. The taxes imposed by this Ordinance may be collected by the Counties on behalf of the District in the same manner and subject to the same penalty as other charges and taxes fixed and collected by the Counties. The revenues raised by this tax are to be used solely for the purposes of obtaining, furnishing, operating and maintaining urgent medical care services, and for other necessary operating expenses of the District, consistent with Section 40 of Chapter 375, Statutes of 1986. (Coast Life Support District Act.) SECTION II. SPECIAL TAX The District's Board of Directors is authorized to levy a special tax within the boundaries of the Coast Life Support District each year, for the purposes stated in Section I, on each parcel of land shown on the respective County Assessor's parcel maps and carried on the County secured property tax rolls; provided, however, that such a special tax shall not be imposed upon a federal or state governmental agency or another local agency. This special tax shall be imposed in accordance with the following schedule. Measure J - continued The following are the special tax rates for the Coast Life Support District: Actual Land Use Units of Benefit Undevelopable agricultural, timber, pasture, or waste land 0 Vacant Buildable Lot 1 Developed Lot 2 SECTION III. SPECIAL TAX LIMIT The special tax authorized by this Ordinance shall not exceed $74 per unit of benefit per year. SECTION IV. REPORT AND HEARING Each year prior to the imposition of said tax the District's Board of Directors shall cause a report to be prepared showing each parcel, the owner(s) thereof, and the proposed levy thereon. Upon the receipt of such report, the Board of Directors shall set a date for a hearing thereof and shall cause notice of such hearing to be posted at three (3) public places within the District, or, in lieu of posting, by mailing notice of hearing to each property owner at the address disclosed on the latest tax roll. At said hearing, the Board of Directors shall make such corrections to the taxes proposed to be levied as may be required to conform to the schedule as set forth above. SECTION V. COLLECTION The tax shall be collected in the same manner and subject to the same penalty as other property taxes collected by the Counties. SECTION VI. APPROPRIATIONS LIMIT The appropriations limit for the District shall be increased by the amount of the additional tax money raised by imposition of this tax. SECTION VII. REPEAL OF EXISTING SPECIAL TAX Upon the approval of this ordinance by two-thirds of the voters voting on this question, the existing special tax, limited to $18.00 per unit of benefit per year, shall be repealed. The appropriation limit for the District shall be increased by the amount of the additional tax money raised by imposition of this tax, for the maximum period permitted by law. SECTION VIII. SEVERABILITY CLAUSE If any section, subsection, sentence, phrase or clause of this Ordinance for any reason held to be invalid, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Ordinance. The Directors of the District hereby declare that they would have adopted the Ordinance and each section thereof despite the fact that any one or more sections, subsections, phrases or clauses be declared invalid. SECTION IX. EFFECTIVE DATE This Ordinance shall take effect immediately upon its confirmation by two-thirds of the voters in the District voting in an election to be held on April 8, 2014.

”

Support

Supporters

Richard Perry, a member of the Coast Life Support District Board of Directors, wrote the official arguments in favor of Measure J.

Arguments in favor

The official arguments in favor of Measure J were:

“	For 20+ years Redwood Coast Medical Services (RCMS) provided urgent medical care services 7 days per week. RCMS stopped providing direct after hours urgent care services in 2009 due to financial constraints. Since then urgent care medical services have not been available to coastal residents 70% of every week, particularly there is no weekend coverage for the 62 hour prior between Friday evening and Monday morning. Medical issues like cuts and wounds, burns, sprains or broken bones requiring x-rays, bronchitis, fevers and various infections can require a three to four hour round trip to Fort Bragg or Santa Rosa. The waiting and treatment time at hospital emergency rooms averages over five hours, and can be shockingly expensive. For most of us RCMS is a relatively short drive and the average urgent care visit at RCMS, including waiting time, takes slightly more than an hour. Currently the annual parcel tax funds less than half of the annual deficit of weekday urgent care. The remaining $170,000 comes from donations to RCMS leaving no money for diagnostic equipment expansion, etc. It is important to provide weekend coverage and find a sustainable method to fund urgent care service + we can't rely on ongoing community donations. A just completed community health survey concluded that 86% of district residents feel that after hours care is a highly important or important service. Having 10 hour, 7 day per week coverage will increase our tax for developed parcels to $112 which is 31 cents a day + much less than a cup of coffee. VOTE YES ON J for the peace of mind of knowing that urgent care will be available on weekends and during the week at a reasonable cost, and is minutes instead of hours away.	”
—Richard Perry, Coast Life Support District Board of Directors,

Opposition

Opponents

The following individuals signed the official arguments against Measure J:

• Scott Farmer, a district voter
• Don Dunning, a resident and voter of Fort Ross School District
• John P. Rosson, a resident and voter of Fort Ross School District
• Rita Miller, a resident and voter of Annapolis

Arguments against

The official arguments submitted in opposition to Measure J were:

“	The CLSD Board has wasted up to $30,000.00 of your tax money to fund this special election when they could have saved your money by waiting two months to have their measure appear on the general ballot in June. They freely and cynically admit that fewer voters will vote. This means that this tax increase has a better chance of passing. "Urgent care" is a non-emergency visit with a medical provider when you do not have a prior appointment. Measure J offers no additional clinic hours on weekdays and ten on-call hours each Saturday and Sunday while raising taxes 400 percent, up to $148 per year for each lot with a home. Vacant parcels that can be developed are half that amount. Furthermore, the board has over $200,000.00 in unspent reserve funds dedicated to urgent service. AMBULANCE SERVICES ARE NOT AFFECTED. Many district residents live far from Gualala and RCMS and logically choose to go to Healdsburg, Fort Bragg or Santa Rosa for care. This growing tax burden in unfair to them. In addition to the $30,000.00 spent to pay for this special election, $175,000.00 was spent on a feasibility study (Camden Study) to guide this process. The direction this board has chosen is to build an extended hours system that is too centralized, is heavily reliant on property taxes and is too expensive for what is being offered. Extended hours care should be self-funded by medical insurance payments and less reliant on property tax support. The board should spend down the over $200,000.00 reserve funds to continue extended care hours while we find a better way. A NO vote says we can do better, we deserve better. Please join us. Vote NO on Measure J.	”
—Scott Farmer, Don Dunning, John P. Rosson and Rita Miller,

See also

• Parcel tax elections in California
• California parcel tax on the ballot
• Parcel tax
• Mendocino County, California ballot measures
• April 8, 2014 ballot measures in California

External links

Suggest a link

• Smartvoter.org, Mendocino County, California, current election information
• Mendocino County elections department website