Measure C deserves community support
The Los Gatos Weekly-Times recommends a yes vote on Measure C on the March 26 ballot. We've listened to the arguments on both sides, and our conclusion boils down to this: A 2 percent utility-use tax represents a relatively painless method of raising funds necessary to maintain services while the town works on strategies for long-term economic stability.
Whether or not you favored Proposition 13, it's hard to argue that its fallout hasn't had a profound impact on local municipalities. Funds that cities and towns used to depend upon now go directly to the state, where, over the years, they have increasingly been diverted from local governments. Every city in the state has scrambled to find ways to make up for these losses.
Los Gatos, however, took an additional hit. A healthy income it realized from sales tax was under-mined when several auto dealers moved their dealerships to huge auto malls.
While there are some spending decisions we do not agree with, the town, overall, has done a respectable job of trimming fat in the face of diminishing income. Adjusted for inflation, the town's general fund budget in 1990 was $14 million. Today, it's $13.4 million.
No one sees the utility-users' tax as a long-term solution to the town's financial woes. It will buy breathing room only; it will allow the town to develop economic-development strategies without a disruption in the current level of services.
Although the town has been slow to embrace the concept of economic development, positive steps finally have been taken. The General Plan Committee is in the final stages of developing guidelines for development on Los Gatos Boulevard; a downtown streetscape plan focuses attention on business retention, and Old Town's new owners are scheduled to appear before the Planning Commission on March 27 to present their proposal.
An economic-development program to enhance sales-tax revenues in time for Measure C's five-year sunset makes sense. However, the town must be careful not to create a government-engineered retail sector. Instead, it must encourage self-managed revitalization by creating a matching funds program for business improvement districts.
We think the town deserves the breathing room Measure C will provide. The monthly $3 or $4 most residents will pay as their share of the tax seems reasonable when compared to reduced library hours, reduced maintenance on hiking and biking trails, bigger potholes and other cutbacks in service.
Vote for Byron Sher
The special election to fill the state Senate seat left vacant by Tom Campbell's election to U.S. Congress offers a choice between an experienced state legislator with a stellar record on education, the environment, public safety and political reform and a Pete Wilson staff aide.
That's hardly a choice at all. The Weekly-Times recommends Assemblyman Byron Sher for the
state Senate seat. No one has worked harder to
make government work.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, March 20, 1996.
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