Please sign this petition if you would vote NO for following measure that the Belvedere City Council is proposing for the November ballot:

To advance public safety; strengthen infrastructure against earthquakes; support fire suppression; safeguard water, sewer and other utilities; secure evacuation routes; and provide other general services, shall the measure establishing Belvedere as a Charter City and enacting a real estate property transfer tax of $8 per $1,000 to be paid by buyers or sellers of real property, providing $1,600,000 annually, to end in 30 years or less, with audits and citizen oversight, benefiting Belvedere, be adopted?   YES or NO

Why you SHOULD vote NO:

1. This measure does not require the city to spend the money in any specific way beyond the ambiguous description given.  They can literally spend it on any "general services" and are not required to spend it on fixing roads or building seawalls.  The tax proceeds go directly to the Belvedere City General Fund.  While the current City Council may make commitments as to how the funds will be spent, those commitments are nonbinding and unenforceable.  Future City Councils are not beholden to those commitments.
2. It changes our City Charter to give the city the power to levy this and any future transfer taxes with a simple majority vote of residents versus a two-thirds majority vote of residents which would be required without the change to the City Charter.
3. It fails to mention that ending the tax in less than 30 years requires a City Council in the future to approve a new ballot measure to cancel the tax that must then be approved by a majority of voters.

While we agree that there are investments needed in our critical infrastructure, we should not change our City Charter to enable the city to so easily tax its residents.  For the last 48 years in California, taxes for special projects - like specific road repairs and seawalls - have required a two-thirds approval from voters.  This safeguard is in place to limit taxation and ensure that residents are taxed only when there is strong consensus.

Our City Council is attempting to skirt this philosophical guardrail by changing our City Charter.  They will tell you other cities in California have made this change to enable the assessment of taxes with a lower threshold - and they are correct - but that does not make it right for Belvedere.  We are a unique and small community where consensus can and should be built. 

We are asking the City Council to trust its residents and not put the proposed measure on the November ballot.  Instead, we are asking the City Council to make the case for funding of specific projects and propose a tax whose proceeds are limited to that specific target and requires a two-thirds majority.  We are confident that if the city puts forward a critical need and a viable plan to address it, our residents will vote yes well in excess of the two-thirds required.