Questions, battle lines confront sugary-drinks tax
Dueling PACs clash over proposal; mailer sent out criticizing Maestas, Trujillo
In eight days, the City Council is set to vote on a proposal by Mayor Javier Gonzales to levy a 2-cents-an-ounce tax on sugary drinks to pay for early childhood education programs in Santa Fe.
But based on an hourlong discussion at a meeting Monday of the council’s Finance Committee, councilors still have a wide range of questions and concerns about the mayor’s proposal, from the methodology an economist used to estimate revenues from the tax to whether drinks that restaurants make in house, such as lemonades and smoothies with honey, would be subject to the tax.
Amendments are also in the works, including some Gonzales discussed at the Finance Committee meeting but said he wasn’t prepared to formally introduce. One of the mayor’s amendments would exempt businesses earning less than $100,000 in gross revenues from the proposed tax.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done before this gets to the vote that it needs to get to on March 8,” Councilor Carmichael Dominguez, who chairs the five-member Finance Committee, said before the panel recommended moving the proposal
forward to the full council. “I’m willing to do my share to try to get this to a place where it’s going to work.”
The last-minute jockeying comes as Gonzales and two city councilors considering running for mayor next year fight over the timing of an election to put the sugary drink tax before voters, should the council approve it. A political action committee composed of some of the mayor’s biggest supporters targeted those two councilors in a new mailer that went out to registered voters in their districts.
The mayor wants to hold a special election in May, but in a move Gonzales called “incredibly disappointing,” Councilors Joseph Maestas and Ron Trujillo introduced a competing piece of legislation calling for the tax question to go before voters during the next regularly scheduled municipal election, which is in March 2018.
“By introducing a delay, Councilors Joe Maestas and Ron Trujillo created a humongous obstacle for thousands of children in Santa Fe,” said Sandra Wechsler, a spokeswoman for the PAC that sent out the mailer attacking Maestas and Trujillo. “We don’t agree with a delay. Santa Fe is ready for pre-K, and we’re wondering why these councilors aren’t.”
Brian Sanderoff is an Albuquerque-based political analyst whose firm has done polling on the mayor’s proposed tax, though he won’t disclose for whom. He said special elections tend to have lower turnout than regular elections, especially if the regular election includes a mayoral race, as next year’s municipal election will.
“In low-turnout elections, oftentimes if there’s a very motivated or mobilized group, they could have significantly more influence because so few people voted,” he said. “I don’t know how it would affect this issue. It would depend on who was motivated or not, so I don’t want to speculate on who it would favor because I’m not sure.”
The mayor’s proposal has sparked two opposing political action committees: the pre-K for Santa Fe PAC that sent out the mailers targeting Maestas and Trujillo and another called Better Way For Santa Fe & Pre-K, whose members include the American Beverage Association, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce.
Wechsler said the proposed tax “will be a very high information race,” which will drive turnout that may “potentially even mirror” a mayor’s race. She said delaying the vote would help the soda industry.
“An entire year would allow Coca-Cola and Pepsi and the American Beverage Association to just pump tons of money into our community to try to sway the election,” she said. “A thousand families can’t wait. They’ve waited long enough. I mean, the Legislature has failed to act for close to 10 years on this. This proposal is baked and ready.”
But David Huynh, an adviser to the PAC opposing the proposed tax, said the proposal is half-baked.
“Why create an expensive special election for pre-K without properly exploring all funding mechanisms when Mayor Gonzales has already admitted the proposal can’t be finalized until 2018?” he said in a statement. “This proposal is being rushed through, and we need to take a little time to get it right in a way that doesn’t harm jobs and small businesses like the beverage tax is doing in Philadelphia.”
The Associated Press recently reported that Philadelphia retailers and beverage distributors are preparing for layoffs because beverage sales have dropped 30 percent to 50 percent since Jan. 1, when the city adopted a 1.5 cents per ounce tax on sweetened and diet beverages to fund pre-K and other programs.
In an interview after the Finance Committee vote, Gonzales said his proposal is ready to go before voters. He said the changes, including those that were recently proposed, “are all in line with enhancing the bill in a very positive way.”
“They don’t change the priority, which is to deliver early childhood education in a highquality way,” he said.
“As in every legislative process, people work until the very end, including on the night that the vote actually takes place, to create a bill that they feel that the governing body requires,” Gonzales added. “If anything, I’m energized by the fact that these types of contributions are coming in from the governing body in ways that will improve the bill. I think that’s what our community wants.”
Gonzales said he has confidence in the revenue estimates. But the mayor, who emphasized that his proposal prioritizes families who are most in need, said the community would work together and figure out a way to fill any funding gaps.
“We cannot let the perfect become the enemy of the good,” he said. “If we spend our entire time trying to find a perfect revenue source that is reliable, that we know absolutely is going to be in place, these children are never going to get access to the programming they need.”