Oceanside’s City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to place a 10-year, half-cent sales tax on the November ballot to help pay for several long-planned projects that the council said are critical.
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If approved, the measure would take effect as soon as April 1, 2027, and would generate about $20 million annually to help pay for things such as replacing the crumbling, 100-year-old, concrete-and-steel approach ramp that provides the only access to the city’s iconic wooden pier.
Also on the council’s list is a detailed, one-of-a-kind plan to restore and retain sand on the city’s eroded beaches, the construction of a new Police Department headquarters to replace a facility that has operated out of a former grocery store for 25 years, and a permanent building for Fire Station No. 8, which also operates out of leased facilities in a location not ideal for its growing service area.
“The lack of money to pay for these things is not a matter of mismanagement or wasteful spending, but that the cost of construction has outpaced revenue,” said Assistant City Manager Michael Gossman.
Most of the residents who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting opposed the measure. Some said temporary taxes are rarely temporary. Oceanside voters approved a six-year, half-cent sales tax hike, Measure X, initially in 2018 and then approved a 10-year extension in 2024.
“I’m getting a little tired of going to the well,” said Mike Bullock, a resident who helped campaign for the passage and later the extension of Measure X.
He and others said any sales tax is regressive, meaning that it hits lower-income people harder than those in the middle- and upper-income levels, who can afford to pay it easily.
In defense of the proposal, city officials said groceries, prescriptions and medical equipment are exempt from sales taxes. Also, more than half of the sales tax revenue collected in Oceanside is paid by people who visit from outside the city.
A recent independent poll showed that 54% to 58% of Oceanside’s registered voters would support the new sales tax, according to a staff report. The measure needs a simple majority of 50% plus one vote to pass.
Oceanside’s current sales tax is is 8.25%, which includes a statewide rate of 7.25%, a San Diego County district tax of 0.5% for the TransNet program that funds regional transportation projects, and the 0.5% local sales tax from Measure X. If approved, the additional 0.5% would place Oceanside at 8.75%, the same level as eight other cities in San Diego County. No city in the county is higher.
Revenue from Measure X has been used to improve public safety and build a new downtown fire station, to repair more than 500 miles of roads, provide youth programming, and expand assistance for the homeless. The spending is reviewed by a citizens oversight committee that reports to the City Council. A similar spending plan and separate oversight committee would be established for the new tax measure.
Some speakers Wednesday said that instead of raising taxes the city simply needs to run more efficiently, and that it can count on several additional revenue sources coming online soon. Among them are two recently opened downtown hotels, a new CarMax auto dealership, and the expected OceanKamp artificial wave resort.
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Mayor Esther Sanchez and staffers said the city runs a lean operation and is financially transparent, but it badly needs a way to fund the facilities that would be covered by the measure. The city has faced hard financial times in the past, said Sanchez, who’s been on the City Council for 26 years.
In 2009, at the peak of the Great Recession, Oceanside was forced to lay off 100 employees and make deep cuts in all its departments except police and fire, Sanchez said.
“We still have less employees now than we did just prior to laying off those 100 people,” she said. “That is how lean your staff is, yet what we have been doing with that staff is tremendous. We are not wasting money.”
The city has set aside $20 million for the pier access bridge replacement, she said. Yet the project needs an additional $50 million, and so far the city has only obtained about $2 million of the federal grant money officials had hoped would cover the balance.
“We may actually have to close the pier because of a lack of funding,” Sanchez said. “It is not because we didn’t plan. It is because a lot has changed.”
Projects get more expensive every year they are delayed, she said, and grant money is getting harder to obtain.
“Fire Station 8 has been waiting in the wings,” Sanchez said. “It is shovel ready. We have not been able to put together funding for that.”
The tax question is the second local measure Oceanside has placed on the November ballot. Earlier this month, the City Council approved a measure asking voters whether public works projects should be required to hire workers at “prevailing wages,” which generally means using union labor.
Also, a coalition of labor unions and nonprofit leaders has turned in signatures in support of a ballot measure proposing a half-cent sales tax hike for all of San Diego County. That measure is intended to help pay for county social services programs, such as food assistance and health care, efforts to resolve the Tijuana River Valley sewage crisis, and staffing, equipment and infrastructure for public safety agencies.
If both city and county tax measures are approved, Oceanside would see its total sales tax climb to 9.25%.
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