NO SALES TAX – VOTE NO ON MEASURE G FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS

To The Voters And Merchants of Los Gatos:

Why you should vote NO! on Measure G – the sales tax measure put forth by the Town Council for the November 6^th, 2018 election.  The numbers you see below come from the Town’s 2018-19 budget or the Town’s Audited Financial Statement.  These are not made up.

1. Tax Measures, however small are just the beginning.  Once passed, a tax and spend Council will be back for more.

2. The money from this General tax can be spent on ANYTHING they want for the next 20 years! regardless of how they have cleverly worded Measure G to mislead you.

3. Mayor Rennie, Councilwoman Jensen and Councilman Leonardis have all stated that they are only proposing a 1.2% increase in the salaries and benefits. That number is generated by a budget process that few use beyond Los Gatos because it can be used to give false and misleading data.   From the actual expenditures (as of the end of 2017-18) to the new budgeted total for 2018-19, they want to increase salaries and benefits 17% just the first year! They claim that staff gave them the 1.2% number, but they knew in June that the real increase was 11% based on the information available at that time. They all knew a significant salary increase was not in the budget.   Once that salary increase was published, the increase soared to 17% above actual wages in 2017-2018.

4. Since 2014, the town added $16,000,000 cash to its bank accounts, bringing the total cash the Town has to $76m! This increase came from increasing property taxes, sales taxes, occupancy taxes, business licenses and fees. Why do they need MORE tax money from us?

5. The latest 5 year budget approved by the Town Council forecasts increasing revenues every year from property taxes, sales taxes and occupancy taxes (and excludes any Measure B funds!). Every year for the next five years there is a budget surplus projected AND that is after covering the increased pension contributions mandated by CALPERS!  Why do they need a sales tax increase if the Town is projecting budget surpluses for the next 5 years? We say “Irresponsible”!

6. The North 40 has already started generating MILLIONS of new tax dollars. If we can get the town to release those numbers, we’ll release them to you.  Note that there has been no information mentioned anywhere as to what the property sale has generated for Los Gatos.  Why do they need a sales tax AND millions from the North 40?  And remember, the developer promised to make $10-$12,000,000 improvements at no cost to the town!

7. The Town has yet to receive any Measure B Funds (remember you just voted to increase the County Sales Tax ½ cent for 30 years and now the Town wants you to increase the local sales tax for 20 years!). The Measure B funds should generate around $580,000 per year. Why do we need to pay more taxes and hurt our local merchants?

8. The Council has amassed $76,000,000 of cash in the bank account, partially by not paying down pension debt that costs 7.375% “interest”. Now they want to tax us because they claim they need money for potholes and police protection (see their wording in the Voter’s Information Guide).  We say, manage the money you have; pay down $10,000,000 of pension debt and the interest expense saved is almost as much as the money a local sales tax will bring in – WITHOUT HURTING OUR MERCHANTS, OR TAXING US FOR ANY GOOD REASON !  And you still have enough left to pay the police and fix the potholes!

9. Cash is a good thing unless you hoard it and don’t use it to pay your bills and then tell your citizens that you need more money for 20 years. Vote No on Measure G.  Tell the Council to properly use the money they have first, then come back to us with a SPECIFIC TAX plan if they need to.  Giving them money with no strings attached is absolutely the wrong thing to do.  Telling us they have an oversight committee when there are no spending rules is clever deception.

10. Don’t let this Town Council deceive you with a 1.2% salary increase and make it sound like they are going to spend the money on police and potholes. They can gold plate the toilets with this General Tax.

11. Vote No On This Deceptive Tax Measure.

Citizens for No-Measure-G.org