A proposition to permanently add a less than 1% sales tax in support of the local zoo is officially on the ballot.
Supporters of the California Living Museum are asking Kern County residents to support a one-eighth of 1 percentage point sales tax to fund a massive expansion advocates say will turn the northeast Bakersfield zoo into a world-class destination.
The group Protect CALM Zoo has been gathering signatures in support of the measure and on Tuesday, the Kern County Board of Supervisors formally certified they’d collected enough.
Supervisors were given the option of requesting a staff report on the potential impacts of the measure before formally approving the signatures, but waived that right.
“Given the fact that they were in the field, and they did all the work, and 30,000 signatures were gathered to meet the election deadlines for the fall, that we just allow the people to Kern County to decide in the general election,” District 4 Supervisor David Couch said.
The group behind the measure, Protect CALM Zoo, gathered 32,870 signatures in favor, several hundred more than the 32,500 required.
If approved by voters in November, the tax would fund CALM’s master plan, which would expand the zoo by 186% to cover 40 acres.