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With some council members pushing for studying other ways of raising revenue, the Atherton City Council has directed staff to look into hiring a pollster to measure support for renewing the town’s parcel tax.
No vote was taken at the March 20 meeting, but the council made it clear that it would be premature to hire a consultant to manage a parcel tax renewal effort before residents were polled.
City Manager George Rodericks had asked the council to consider bringing in a professional group to manage a poll, then analyze results “for feasibility and provide the town with a strategic memorandum that discusses the vitality, risks, opportunities, effective message, and recommendations” on how to proceed with a ballot measure.
Mayor Elizabeth Lewis said she believes the town should “poll residents, but we don’t need a consultant at this time.”
Mr. Rodericks estimated the cost of conducting a poll of residents at $15,000 to $20,000.
The parcel tax will expire in June 2014, and the town is considering a renewal measure for the November 2013 ballot. With one exception, Atherton residents have in the past supported the tax, which must receive a two-thirds vote to pass.
Because the town collects almost no sales tax, it has relied on its annual tax of $750 on most parcels to supplement property tax revenue — by far the town’s largest source of revenue — and other smaller revenue sources.
Parcel tax revenue goes to police services (60 percent) and capital projects (40 percent). Tax revenue for this fiscal year is expected to come in at about $1.86 million, providing about $1.1 million to the police department and about $744,000 to public works projects, according to the staff report.
With a budget of nearly $5.5 million this fiscal year, the police department accounts for just over half of the town’s $10.9 million budget.
The council has talked about finding other revenue sources, and Mr. Rodericks suggested that council members evaluate additional means of raising funds as it proceeds with a parcel tax renewal effort. Council members Jim Dobbie and Bill Widmer pushed for exploring those options sooner rather than later.
“Do we need a parcel tax continuance?” Mr. Widmer asked. “I’m not prepared to say we need to continue it or not, but we need to discuss it and have facts.”
Mr. Dobbie urged fellow council members to focus on other possible revenue sources such as a road impact fee and a real estate transfer tax. But in the end, the council agreed that studying other options would take time, and that in order to keep open the option of renewing the parcel tax, the town had to move ahead with the process and review other revenue sources later.
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It would be totally irresponsible for the Council to hire a pollster to administer an unstandardized and unvalidated survey solely to look at the parcel tax.
The Town has been offered FREE participation in the National Citizens Survey.
“Developed by ICMA and National Research Center, Inc., The National Citizen Survey™ (The NCS) is a low-cost citizen survey service for local governments. Tested, flexible, affordable, and efficient, The NCS lets you survey citizen opinion for:
– Program Planning
– Budgeting
– Goal Setting
– Performance Measurement.
Staff can use the results of The NCS to improve service delivery. Elected officials can use the results to set spending priorities. The manager can use the results to measure progress and chart future steps.
You select from a set of standard questions to assess citizen opinion about basic services and community life. Additional customized questions let you tailor the survey to your unique needs. A new feature of The NCS’ basic service is the Key Driver Analysis, which helps you identify those attributes most likely to increase resident opinion of your local government’s performance.”
“The NCS is a 5-page survey, based on our templatized tool, mailed to 1,200 randomly selected households. (For a small additional cost it could be mailed to EVERY Atherton household).
– Ability to add custom questions
– A report of results, including benchmark comparisons from NRC’s database of over 500 jurisdictions
– Key driver analysis to determine resident priorities
– Entry to win top honors for Voice of the People Awards™
– Access to Best Practices reported by winners of The Voice of The People Awards™”
The NCS would be a great baseline for the Council and the staff to better understand what all the residents want from their Town government and what are the service areas that are in most need of improvement. And having standardized results would allow performance and satisfaction comparisons with other communities.
What the Council needs are facts and not a a poorly designed, unvalidated poll driven solely by the desire to raise taxes. Hopefully the Council won’t go down the staff recommended route and waste money to get unvalidated and non-comparable results which are confined solely to the parcel tax issue.
Do Peter’s idea and also use the Athertonians and Survey Monkey to do an on-line survey.
The Parcel Tax has failed to achieve the 2/3rds vote three times: 1999, 2000, and 2004, but always had a majority vote.
The situation is probably the same. 15-20% do not favor the extra tax, 50-60% support the tax for more services; and 20-25% are undecided.
The higher the tax- the less the support. Use the Athertonians to set up questions on ranges.
Would you support a Parcel Tax of $500? for ……services
Would you support a Parcel Tax of $750? for ……services
Would you support a Parcel Tax of $1000? for …..services
Would you prefer no Parcel Tax?
Would you prefer a Real Estate Transfer tax? of ……?
Would you prefer a Utility Tax of …..%?
Couldn’t Atherton save the sixty percent expenditure by outsourcing the Atherton police department to the San Mateo County Sheriff? Look for this study just to whitewash and prop up the need to renegotiate the costly Atherton police contract for more years. The Daily Post notes there is another lawsuit against the Atherton Police today.
Wake up people, why suffer through another costly tax?
Yes, there is another lawsuit by a police professional who was mistreated and wrongfully fired by Col. Klunk, er Flint. This guy has been creating a hostile work environment at the APD and needs to go. First he demoted John Mattes, who provided remarkable leadership in maintaining Atherton’s dispatch at the highest possible standards. Next he fires Joanne Thomas who has been an eleven year veteran dispatcher for some trivial nonsense. That’s what we get for bringing in an outsider who doesn’t understand Atherton and its police department.
Regarding the survey, it’s already been done. It’s called the election. Atherton residents overwhelmingly decided that shortsightedly looking at costs of the police department is not in their best interests. It will massively decrease home values if Atherton turns into a community that requires half hour response times instead of five minute response times. 97% or more of residents support the police department whole heartedly. Officers are leaving because compensation is not competitive. That needs to be fixed. The parcel tax has never been adjusted for inflation. It needs to be. The problem is expecting that prices are the same as more than ten years ago.
Very interesting to read Thomas’ complaint. She provided the door combination to the police department secure area to AT&T and PG&E employees, and was fired for breaching confidentiality. She admits the department has a confidentiality policy, but argues the code wasn’t really confidential since the combination hadn’t been changed for awhile, and was not changed after employees left “including some whose employment was terminated for misconduct.”
Who at the police department had their employment terminated for misconduct? wow.