Though this website is mainly focused on The Problem, we had some curiosity in the 2018 City lIghts vote. That tax is a set fee per dwelling unit and not based on square footage and the ballots are mailed to the taxpayer or property owner. It is not voted on by the general public as we will do on the March Ballot for the new schools taxes.

Why were we curious? We found out that the tax was passed by a very small margin. It passed 50.26% to 49.74% and there were 241 ballots out of 9,356 declared invalid. We decided to take a look at these invalid ballots. Many were unsigned, one of them the taxpayers dog ate a portion of it (yes it was very cute!) But, many of them were very clearly marked with a NO vote, yet were placed in the invalid pile. About 50 of these in the invalid pile were placed there because taxpayers wrote notes to the city on their ballots. Examples of these notes were,

“Too many fees. No way!”

“I cannot afford higher property taxes!”

“P.S. We are still waiting for the underground utilities we paid for a decade ago.”

“I understand fee. But I’m senior. If tax went up, hard to living.”

“There is plenty of money in the general fund if it is spent wisely!”

Would those 50 ballots have made a difference if they had been included in the vote? Probably. Does the city have a right to cast aside votes that voice any dissatisfaction with the way we are taxed? We just don’t know and it is overwhelming to try to scrub out the dirtiness in all the little ways it exists.

So, the takeaway for us is this…we have to be very careful HOW we vote in this city. If we write a note to the city on our ballot voicing our dissatisfaction we risk not being counted in the vote. Let’s also be VERY careful how we vote in the next March 2020 election.