Tax, land measures on ballot

SUNNYVALE — Sunnyvale voters will decide in November whether cellphone and related services should be locally taxed and whether residents must approve any sale or lease transactions involving a city park or other community amenity.

At a recent meeting, the Sunnyvale City Council voted 5-1, with Pat Meyering dissenting, to put both questions on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.

The council began talking in December about modernizing the utility users tax, which has remained largely intact in the four decades since it was enacted in 1969. The city collects a general tax of 2 percent from electricity, gas and telecom charges, revenue that accounts for about 5 percent of its general fund.

Because the telecom portion of the tax is based on landline phone charges but not mobile, the city has seen a revenue drop in recent years as more residents have ditched the former and flocked to the latter.

“The existing language was put in place in 1969. The city owned no computers, nor did we know we would ever own any at the time,” Mayor Glenn Hendricks said about the tax. “That revenue goes toward services people want.”

The ballot measure would not raise the tax rate, but it would apply the 2 percent rate to voice over internet protocol, paging and mobile communication services, including prepaid mobile services. Internet access, email or downloads would not be affected.

According to a May staff report to the City Council, a survey of potential voters showed 57 percent to 58 percent would support the measure, which needs only a simple majority to pass.

Also on the ballot is an initiative called the Public Lands for Public Use Act. It sprung from the city’s controversial sale of the Raynor Activity Center to the Stratford private school for its new campus. Residents critical of the sale formed a group and gathered more than 7,400 signatures to qualify the initiative for the ballot. The measure would “modify the city’s municipal code by requiring prior voter approval for any sale, lease, lease extension, lease renewal, land swap or transfer of property owned, leased or used by the city as a public park or community service amenity,” according to a staff report.

The initiative went to the City Council June 14, which decided then to evaluate the 75-word ballot language to determine whether it would apply to city leases of its property and to city leases of property owned by third parties. At its July 12 meeting, the council decided to retain the original ballot language and clarify that the property transactions could only be voted on during special or general elections.