San Diego County voters appear to be handing a major victory to the Democrat-led Board of Supervisors as early election returns show leads for two ballot measures rewriting the county charter and raising the sales tax rate, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
The measures give supervisors greater power to steer county bureaucracy and provide hundreds of millions of dollars in additional taxpayer money. Backers declared victory on Thursday and Friday as returns showed leads widening with 390,000 ballots still to be tallied, representing 31 percent of the total vote.
Measure A, the rewrite of the county charter, had just above 52 percent of the vote late Friday. Measure B, the sales-tax surcharge, showed a near identical standing at the polls.
The sales-tax surcharge will raise between $400 million and $450 million a year by hiking the countywide sales tax rate by a half-cent. More than $100 million a year of that new revenue will go directly toward addressing the sewage crisis in the Tijuana River Valley.
In Nestor, 71 percent of voters supported the sales-tax measure, while 62 percent backed it in Imperial Beach, according to initial results.
The sewage crisis has closed the Imperial Beach shoreline for years and costs the regional economy up to $500 million annually. Environmental Protection Agency consultants estimated in 2021 that building an advanced treatment plant cost anywhere from $73 million to more than $200 million, depending on its size.
About a fifth of the tax revenue, nearly $100 million annually, will go to the First 5 Commission of San Diego to support regional childcare programs. The funding will split between programming, worker stipends, and family vouchers.
Erin Hogeboom, a childcare advocate who helped support the ballot measure, said the funds will transform a strained sector of the economy. Hogeboom noted that 5,000 families currently sit on the waitlist to receive state vouchers, up from 3,100 families in June.
Another large tranche of revenue, up to $171 million, will go toward social services like Medi-Cal and CalFresh.
Measure A authorizes an ethics commission, budgeting and program auditing offices under supervisor control, and extends term limits from two to three terms. Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer, who authored the charter rewrite, said voters got it right.
It’s really a resounding endorsement of the fact that government can make a difference.
First elected in 2020, Lawson-Remer would have faced a term limit in 2028 under the old rules, but can now serve until 2032. Political analyst Mason Herron of Edgewater Strategies noted that the measures ran on narrow leads despite high Democratic turnout.
The new surcharge will not hit tax rolls until April 1. Supervisors must appoint an 11-member citizen oversight committee to monitor expenditures, while a task force has two years to draft implementation recommendations for the charter reforms.
