FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) — Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer spoke to FOX26 about a proposal by the state to take local property taxes from areas near High-Speed Rail.
“There’s actually a 10 big city mayors have signed on to a document, sent it to the governor as well as to high speed rail for the purpose of letting him know that we do not support, in fact we adamantly oppose any attempt to be able to take the local, whether it’s sales tax or property tax dollars in and around the high speed rail station development,” said Mayor Dyer. “Those are local dollars, those are monies that we rely on heavily to be able to support our public safety as well as our parks, or public works, and it is not constitutionally allowable in California for the state of California to come in and to take those sales tax dollars for any other purpose than what they’re intended for, and that’s support local government.”
Neither the state nor HSR has said how much the tax would be and Mayor Dyers says nobody has even contacted his office.
“I will tell you that the High-Speed Rail Authority has not even met with any mayors throughout California to share this idea,” said Dyer. “We learned about it, and unfortunately, we were not included in any conversation.”
Is there a mechanism to handle state-level adjustments like this?
“Well, cities across California are really operating on thin margins,” said Dyer. “You see in our budget this year, we’ve had to cut expenses by $34.5 million, or ratchet up our sales tax revenues to be able to balance our budget, and to lose additional sales tax dollars or property tax dollars in and around the High-Speed Rail Station would be detrimental to the city of Fresno and cities throughout California..
Mayor Dyer is hoping the letter sent by the city mayors to Governor Newsom will convince the governor and the legislature that this kind of action is unacceptable.
“We adamantly oppose any effort to be able to take local money and use it for High-Speed Rail development,” said Dyer. But we believe, and our attorneys believe, that it is a violation of the California Constitution as well as other laws that are on the books that prevent state government from coming in and interfering and taking local tax dollars.
The mayor did clarify that not all 10 of the mayors are “big city mayors.” They are 10 mayors from across California, including Fresno, Anaheim, Lancaster, Riverside, Bakersfield, Gilroy, Merced, Burbank, Hanford, and Stockton.
So we’re hopeful that the mayors, big city mayors, and Central Valley mayors, who have signed on to this letter opposing any effort to take a tax increment from the local government, will be adamantly opposed,” said Dyer. “We cannot afford at the local level to lose precious tax dollars that are used to support public safety, our parks, our roads. We cannot afford to lose those funds simply to offset whatever deficit they’re facing at High-Speed Rail.”