first discussed<\/a> a sales tax ballot measure in April but sought to revisit the issue earlier this month. <\/p>\nAt the May 12 meeting, the panel considered number of revenue-raising options, including a sales tax hike. City staff received direction to prepare documents for both the sales tax measure and a measure to raise current hotel bed taxes.<\/p>\n
City staff left the term of the proposed sales tax hike blank with councilmembers tasked to fill it in on Tuesday with five votes needed in support.<\/p>\n
How the ballot measure presented to voters is a sensitive and high-stakes issue. Facing budgetary woes before, Orange voters narrowly rejected Measure Z in 2024, which would have raised the sales tax by a half-percent for 10 years.<\/p>\n
According to the Orange County Registrar of Voters, about 37% of registered voters in Orange are Democrat, closely followed by Republicans at 35% and independents at 22%.<\/p>\n
Last month, Councilmember Jon Dumitru acknowledged that a vote to put a sales tax measure on the ballot in an election year would amount to \u201cpolitical suicide\u201d for some of his colleagues on the dais.<\/p>\n
This time around, Dumitru supported Councilmember Arianna Barrios, who favored a term that voters would decide to end. Slater countered with a fixed 10-year term, a move that garnered support from Councilmember Kathy Tavoularis.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us intimately know that councils can get \u2026 lackadaisical,\u201d Tavoularis said. \u201cThe reason I want 10 years is it keeps future councils\u2019 feet to the fire. I can\u2019t vote for a 20-year tax increase.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both motions failed to get the supermajority vote needed on the seven-member council to proceed.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Ana Gutierrez sought to find a middle ground and floated a 15-year term to Tavoularis as a compromise.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live in a small \u2018c\u2019 conservative community where, right now, the economy \u2026 it\u2019s hard for people to do this,\u201d Tavoularis countered. \u201cPutting a 15-year [sales tax increase] on our residents is a little burdensome at this time\u2014 not that I don\u2019t think we need the money. I definitely think we need the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without a clear path forward, Dumitru asked when the city would have to make a bankruptcy declaration. City Manager Jarad Hildenbrand said Orange isn\u2019t at that point yet, but has until July 14 to put a sales tax measure on the November ballot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very confused by the fact that everybody agrees that, for the last year or two years, we\u2019re struggling,\u201d Dumitru said. \u201cWe can\u2019t pay to keep police officers. We\u2019re going to have trouble starting to fund our fire department, but we\u2019re back at indecision and inaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hoping to break the impasse, he asked colleagues to support a 1% sales tax increase for a 12-year term.<\/p>\n
Before debate could get going, Tavoularis took issue with Dumitru\u2019s criticism of the council.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking for months about different things I\u2019ve offered [and] different things you\u2019ve offered,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s unfair to say that people don\u2019t want to see things because we don\u2019t see it your way. That\u2019s really unfair when you\u2019re trying to get people on the same page.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barrios admonished Dumitru about talking over Tavoularis.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re afraid,\u201d he told Tavoularis under his breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not afraid,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Dumitru asked Tavoularis about a 12-year term.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I want to table this motion right now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Before that happened, Dumitru\u2019s motion for a 12-year term fell one vote shy of the supermajority needed. Sensing the frustration mounting, councilmembers tabled the sales tax ballot measure until their next meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Financial frustrations festered this week between elected officials as the Orange City Council failed to put a sales…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,27198,2323,138883,1793,3906,171,138885,130764,108154,138884,7585,4610,4486,1522,72],"class_list":["post-336259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-city-manager","tag-council","tag-dumitru","tag-issue","tag-month","tag-orange","tag-sale-tax-ballot-measure","tag-sale-tax-hike","tag-sale-tax-increase","tag-tavoularis","tag-term","tag-thing","tag-vote","tag-voter","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336259","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=336259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}