It was bad enough that the Oakland City Council undermined the election process by moving the goal posts for an education initiative and declaring the measure passed.
Now, collecting the tax called for in Measure AA while it remains in legal limbo would be doubling down on outrageous behavior. We find out Tuesday whether the council will cave to pressure from Mayor Libby Schaaf and others to go along with the latest abusive proposal. Let’s hope not.
The council will decide whether to start levying homeowners the $198-a-year parcel tax called for under Schaaf’s $1 billion-plus, 30-year measure. The $25 million-$30 million collected each year would help fund early childhood education and provide mentoring and financial assistance to help balance inequities in access to college education.
They are good goals in a horribly drafted measure. But this isn’t about the measure. It’s about the election process.
City Attorney Barbara Parker told voters that Measure AA required two-thirds approval for passage last November. Then, after the ballot count showed only 62 percent support, the City Council declared the measure needed just a simple majority.
The League of Women Voters of Oakland said the council’s “shocking and disappointing” action “undermines public confidence in our elected officials.” Precisely.
Council members said they would file a motion asking a court to validate their action. But they haven’t yet. Not surprisingly, outraged taxpayers and business leaders filled the void, filing a lawsuit seeking to overturn the council action.
The issue now is whether the city should start collecting the tax while Measure AA is in legal limbo. The answer should be obvious: No.
Even council members realize that. In closed session, they decided unanimously not to collect the tax and announced they would publicly affirm that decision at Tuesday’s meeting.
But some Measure AA backers, including Schaaf, are pushing council members to reverse themselves. Take the money out of the pockets of property owners now, they argue. The city can give it back if it loses in court.
It’s a cynical disregard for the electoral process and taxpayers’ pocketbooks. The case could take years. The city administrator estimates the cost of collecting the money and then refunding it three years later would be about $2 million. Her analysis makes no mention of paying property owners interest for that time.
Will council members have the backbone to stick by their decision to not collect the tax? Expect an Oakland-style political brawl at the meeting, which starts at 5 p.m. in the council chamber.
Those who support implementing the tax now will refuse to acknowledge that the measure was badly flawed. They will portray themselves as protectorates of children and upholders of majority rule. They will demonize opponents as greedy special interests using the state’s unfair tax-election rules to protect their pocketbooks.
But those are the rules that state voters have approved. Those are the rules the city attorney announced for the Measure AA election — the ones campaigns on both sides relied on when planning their strategies.
If backers of the measure didn’t like Parker’s determination that two-thirds approval would be required, they had ample time to challenge it in court before the voter pamphlet was printed and mailed out. They didn’t.
Now that they lost, they’re claiming a majority threshold should have applied. They cite a 2017 state Supreme Court ruling that suggests local initiatives like Measure AA, put on the ballot through a signature-gathering process, require only majority approval.
But that Supreme Court case had to do with election timing, not the vote threshold. The council should avoid an over-broad interpretation until the high court provides clarity.
The City Council has a steep legal hurdle to clear to uphold its claim that Measure AA passed. Oakland shouldn’t be taking property owners’ money until the issue is resolved.