A marketing campaign flier arriving in mailboxes round Los Angeles County promotes a poll measure that may mandate “a new approach to expand programs that are proven to prevent homelessness and increase housing affordability.”
The measure, which is able to seem on the November poll, would “repeal the existing approach,” it says.
What it doesn’t say is that the measure is a tax and that it might double the quarter-cent gross sales tax that funds the present strategy.
Measure A, which requires a easy majority for passage, would repeal the quarter-cent gross sales tax voters accepted in 2017, two years forward of its necessary expiration in 2027, and substitute it with a half-cent gross sales tax that may stay in impact indefinitely, until repealed by voters.
A flier promotes Measure A, a tax improve estimated to boost greater than $1 billion a yr for homelessness applications and providers.
(Los Angeles Instances)
The tax, estimated to boost greater than $1 billion yearly, would fund homelessness applications, together with psychological well being care, reasonably priced housing, rental subsidies, and providers.
Sixty p.c of the cash would go to the county for homeless providers and prevention together with backed housing and shelter, psychological well being care, case administration, employment providers and acquisition of present housing.
One other 35.75% would go to the newly fashioned Los Angeles County Inexpensive Housing Options Company for development of recent housing, preservation of reasonably priced housing and tenant protections.
The flier states that L.A. County officers estimate that homelessness would improve no less than 25% if the earlier tax have been to run out with out a alternative. Even so, it says, the prior measure “does not sufficiently fund either homelessness prevention or affordable housing—key lessons learned that are reflected in Measure A.”
So long as the right disclosures are included figuring out who’s behind the mailer, there is no such thing as a requirement to supply all related data, mentioned Sean McMorris, transparency, ethics and accountability program supervisor for the watchdog group California Widespread Trigger. That could be a requirement, although, for the outline included in pattern ballots mailed to all voters.
“That’s just kind of typical political strategy: Avoid negative aspects, and focus on the positive aspects or the talking points that will be most appealing or less controversial to the public,” McMorris mentioned. “If that means not mentioning this is an actual tax, then it is left to the voters to do their own research or to read the ballot description, or for the press to inform them.”
The flier signifies it was sponsored by United Means of Higher Los Angeles, Habitat for Humanity Higher Los Angeles and PATH, or Individuals Helping the Homeless.
Tommy Newman, United Means’s vp for public affairs and activation, mentioned the teams despatched it independently of the Measure A marketing campaign.
“This is not a campaign piece of mail,” Newman mentioned. “It doesn’t say vote yes. It offers facts about the measure. You only get so much space in these pieces and you try to tell the story about what the measure will do.”
Newman mentioned it’s one in every of a number of mailings that can exit because the marketing campaign gears up and others will embrace data on the tax supply.
The flier, which went to 1,000,000 households, has a hyperlink to a web site created by United Means that goes into extra element, together with an evaluation of the price. It estimates the gross sales tax would price $5 per thirty days for a mean family and $13 a month for a high-income family. It offers an instance of the added price of 25 cents for a $100 tennis racket or necklace.
If adopted, Measure A would add a quarter-cent to the gross sales tax in most cities and unincorporated areas. However in six cities the tax will improve a half-cent as a result of their gross sales tax charges have been on the most when the sooner measure went into impact. A current change in state regulation has allowed their charges to extend.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which wrote the opposition assertion that can seem on the poll, considers the measure a particular curiosity tax placed on the poll by teams that can profit from it, mentioned Susan Shelley, vp for communications.
The measure, which certified for the poll by means of a signature marketing campaign, requires solely a easy majority for passage below court docket rulings that the voter-approved requirement of two-thirds majority for tax will increase imposed by authorities doesn’t apply to citizen initiatives.
“Raising the sales tax and taking the temporary tax and making it permanent and doing it with a citizens initiative, we think it’s outrageous,” Shelly mentioned.
The Jarvis affiliation has not determined how a lot it is going to put into an opposition marketing campaign, Shelly mentioned.
Newman mentioned the pro-campaign is concentrated on the main new parts of Measure A — elevated funds for housing, homelessness prevention and accountability — than the price.
“In the research the campaign has done, the primary concerns voters have are not about the sales tax increase,” Newman mentioned. “The primary concerns they are how this money is going to be spent, what is it different than what we were doing before and what will the results be.”
The measure requires oversight by a brand new board referred to as the Management Desk, made up of metropolis and county officers and group representatives. Previous to the election, the group will create a draft of particular metrics for every of 5 targets: improve the variety of individuals shifting from encampments, cut back the variety of homeless individuals with psychological sickness and/or substance use dysfunction, improve the variety of individuals completely leaving homelessness, forestall individuals from changing into homeless and improve the variety of reasonably priced housing models.
Funds can be shifted from applications that fail to satisfy these targets.
Marketing campaign finance information filed with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder present two committees behind the measure have raised slightly below $4 million, with United Means contributing $1,580,000.
