By Dave Downey
North County Times
February 2, 2007
BORREGO
SPRINGS ---- A new poll suggests that a small increase in the
sales tax, new car taxes and fees on retail development
represent the best bets to boost funding for San Diego
County's overtaxed transportation system and popular but
underfunded environmental programs.
Results of the poll, conducted by the North County consulting
firm of True North Research for the San Diego Association of
Governments, were unveiled in detail at the association's
annual winter board retreat in the desert town of Borrego
Springs in east county.
The
public's preferences didn't necessarily jibe with the
association's. Barely half of the 96 association officials
attending favored a sales tax increase of any kind, and many
doubted their constituents would, either, at the polls.
"I think there is a certain segment of San Diego that
wouldn't vote for any tax increase at all," said Dave
Roberts, a Solana Beach councilman.
No decisions were made, and it remains unclear whether any of
the potential taxes might wind up on the county ballot anytime
soon, such as during the November 2008 general election. But
association officials said the poll will serve to frame debate
in coming months as board members grapple with how to keep
pace with soaring construction costs for highways and public
transit.
The poll also will shape discussion about how the agency
should make good on a 2004 promise to devise a plan to fund
regional environmental programs by the end of next year. The
promise was something the board made to persuade local
conservation groups to get behind the 2004 ballot measure to
increase the county's half-cent sales tax for transportation.
"As you recall, it passed by the narrowest of
margins," said Crystal Crawford, a Del Mar councilwoman
and association board member. "Absent that commitment, it
might very well have failed." The environmental programs
targeted by any new ballot measure could include efforts to
clean up stormwater runoff before it fouls area rivers and the
ocean, as well as wildlife habitat preservation and beach sand
replenishment projects.
When asked what types of measures they might approve for such
programs, two-thirds of poll participants said they would
support a fee on the construction of retail stores and 64
percent said they would support a $2-per-day increase in the
tax on rental cars. Sixty-one percent said they could live
with a 0.125-cent increase in the sales tax, which in most
communities is 7.75 cents on the dollar but in Vista is 8.25
cents.
There was significantly less support for property tax
increases, hotel taxes and developer fees on new homes.
At the bottom of the list was the notion of a regional beach
parking fee, which only 35 percent of poll respondents
supported.
When it came to finding ways to boost transportation funding,
the most promising option appeared to be a quarter-cent
increase in the countywide sales tax, garnering 62 percent
support. Slightly less than 62 percent also expressed support
for increasing the annual vehicle registration fee by $2,
according to the poll. About 58 percent of respondents said
they could support a fee on retail development for
transportation.
Meanwhile, when asked to consider a half-cent increase in the
sales tax, 59 percent said they supported that idea.
Perhaps contrary to the direction the association is headed
with projects like the Interstate 15 managed lanes, which will
be open to toll-paying drivers, barely half ---- 52 percent
---- favored letting solo drivers drive car-pool lanes for a
toll. And just 46 percent supported adding toll lanes to
existing freeways, as the association proposes to do, for
example, with Interstate 5 in North County.
At the bottom of the funding options was charging parking fees
at bus and train stations. Just one-quarter of county
residents appear to support that, the poll shows.
"The real losers in both surveys were parking fees,"
said Karen Lamphere, an association planner.
Association officials said True North conducted two separate
telephone polls in November and December. Each contacted 1,000
people spread equally around the San Diego region, and the
polls were reported to have an error margin of plus or minus
3.1 percent.
Association officials indicated in informal polling Thursday
that they were more inclined to support a hotel tax increase
than a boost in the sales tax, and two-thirds voiced support
for a beach parking fee.
Escondido Councilman Ed Gallo said such fees work well in New
Jersey.
"They have the best beaches, the cleanest sand," he
said.
But Mike Nichols, a Solana Beach councilman, said he could not
support a parking fee that would inevitably drive droves of
people away from San Diego County's oceanfront.
A beach parking fee would be designed specifically to fund
projects that dredge sand from the ocean and spread it on the
area's thinner beaches.
As it turned out, at least in the poll, replenishing beach
sand is relatively low on residents' priority lists for
environmental programs. Poll participants said they were much
more concerned about cleaning up the ocean and other
waterways, and setting aside open space for wildlife and
people.
That did not come as a surprise to Mark Massara, coastal
programs director for the San Diego County Sierra Club.
"It (beach replenishment) is very expensive,"
Massara said in a telephone interview. "It has severe
environmental impacts on the public beaches, and it doesn't
last very long. The primary beneficiaries are the millionaire
owners of shoreline mansions whose sea walls are responsible
for the problem (thinning beaches) in the first place."
The association's retreat, a time for brainstorming solutions
to regional problems, is being held at a hotel resort in
Borrego Springs. Executive Director Gary Gallegos said the
retreat bill will come to $40,000.
Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.
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