{"id":193189,"date":"2026-02-25T15:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193189\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T15:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:18:09","slug":"property-tax-for-balboa-park-upgrades-could-be-headed-to-november-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193189\/","title":{"rendered":"Property tax for Balboa Park upgrades could be headed to November ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Three<\/a>The San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park on Jan. 21, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

San Diego voters could soon be asked to approve a property tax to pay for a bunch of upgrades in Balboa Park.<\/p>\n

One political boost the measure could have going for it: It would eliminate paid parking<\/a> in the park, along with the big-money additions it would fund.<\/p>\n

The measure would allow the city to issue up to $1 billion in general obligation bonds, which would be paid off through a new parcel tax assessment of between $3.50 and $23 per $100,000 of assessed value per parcel. The assessment would increase within that range as the city issues debt up to the $1 billion limit, and the tax would expire when the debt is paid off.<\/p>\n

On a hypothetical $500,000 home, that works out to a tax of $17.50 per year in the early years, or up to $115 per year as the city reaches its debt limit.<\/p>\n

Supporters of the measure have a lengthy \u2014 and pricey \u2014 wish list for all that bond revenue.<\/p>\n

It includes an underground parking garage behind the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, with the current surface lot there turned into park area, for $100 million. Parking would be free in the park as long as the bonds aren\u2019t paid off.<\/p>\n

A new San Diego Museum of Art building<\/a> would cost $250 million. Restorations of the Old Globe and Starlight Bowl would cost $50 million and $25 million respectively. <\/p>\n

The measure would also build park ranger stations \u2014 complete with public restrooms \u2014 throughout the park, for a total of $25 million. There\u2019d be a new pedestrian bridge dubbed\u201dInspiration Bridge,\u201d connecting Golden Hill Park to Inspiration Point for $100 million.<\/p>\n

The SDMA rebuild and Inspiration Bridge would be required to use mass timber, a sustainable alternative to using steel for large buildings<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The project list would also include a renovation and expansion of the Morley Field Sports Complex, for $50 million, and a restoration of the Golden Hill Recreation Center to include a new skate park, for $5 million.<\/p>\n

The other big-ticket items include remediation of the Arizona Street Landfill in the park, for $75 million, and a rehabilitation of the Balboa Park Administration Building, which would include classroom space to accommodate programming with the San Diego Unified School District, for $25 million. Unspent funds would be directed to park upgrades elsewhere in the city.<\/p>\n

The proposal is being championed by a new issue-advocacy group called Platform for Democracy. The group last week completed a poll testing the viability of the measure, paid for by Western States Carpenters, a labor union. Evinco Strategies, led by long-time Democratic strategist Eva Posner, is consulting for the effort.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s poll of 500 registered, likely city voters, reviewed by Times of San Diego, found 45% of respondents who had not yet heard any positive or negative messages about the measure would support it, while 40% wouldn\u2019t and 13% were undecided.<\/p>\n

After respondents were fed a series of messages promoting the measure and negative messages attacking it, 50% said they would vote for it, 40% still opposed it and 10% remained undecided.<\/p>\n

The group is now gathering with supporters to make a final determination over whether to go forward with their campaign, which would begin with collecting signatures in hopes of qualifying for the November ballot.<\/p>\n

Andy Kopp, CEO of Platform for Democracy, told Times of San Diego in a statement that Balboa Park matters to all San Diegans, and the group wants it to be unrivaled for generations to come. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if we want the public to support investing in an ambitious vision, we can\u2019t simply ask for more money to deliver the same experience,\u201d he said. \u201cWe wanted to know, can we take a big swing and demonstrate we can solve the whole problem? The answer must be yes, so we can earn the trust of the public to solve the next problem.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park on Jan. 21, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Murphy\/Times of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4549,63932,26566,74,76,75,1694],"class_list":["post-193189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-balboa-park","tag-balboa-park-parking-fees","tag-ballot-measures","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}