Sales tax and toll hikes go to voters in March
One measure designed to fund health services, the other to improve transit systems
By Michelle Maitre, STAFF WRITER, Oakland Tribune
Wednesday, December 03, 2003

It's official: Alameda County voters will be asked in March whether they want to dig deeper into their pocketbooks to help fund health care services for the poor and improve transit systems throughout the Bay Area.

County supervisors, meeting Tuesday in Oakland, wrapped up a few final, procedural matters required to place two money-generating initiatives on the mid-term election ballot.

The first is a half-cent increase in county sales tax that would raise money for county health care for the indigent and uninsured, as well as the financially ailing Alameda County Medical Center, which has an $86 million deficit.

The second measure would raise the toll on the Bay Area's seven state-controlled bridges by $1 to fund transit improvements as part of a regional traffic relief plan. Voters in San Mateo, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Solano and San Francisco counties will also vote on the toll hike.

The sales tax increase, called the Essential Health Care Services Tax, would raise Alameda County's sales tax to 8.75 percent -- higher than any other county in the state. Two-thirds of the voters must approve the measure.

The tax would raise an estimated $90 million a year, with 75 percent of the money going to the medical center, which includes Highland Hospital in Oakland, Fairmont Hospital and John George Psychiatric Pavilion in San Leandro, and three outpatient clinics.

Supervisors have said the tax would help offset what they call a health care crisis brought on by decreased federal and state funding for services for the poor and rising numbers of uninsured and underinsured persons.

"Now the hard part is convincing the public that we really do need to have that passed because health care is so threatened in Alameda County," board President Gail Steele said.

Also Tuesday, supervisors approved a resolution to place the bridge-toll increase on the ballot, a legal formality being repeated in other Bay Area counties that will vote on the measure. State Sen. Don Perata first proposed the increase in a bill signed in October by former Gov. Gray Davis.

Voters will be asked to raise the one-way toll to $3 on the Bay, San Mateo, Dumbarton, San Rafael, Carquinez, Benicia and Antioch bridges effective July 1.

The toll hike -- if approved by a majority of voters -- would raise about $125 million a year for transit projects, including a regional Express Bus network, expanded ferry service, a fourth bore through the Caldecott Tunnel and seismic retrofits to BART's Transbay Tube, as well as other BART improvements.

Supervisors had also been expected to vote to place two additional tax-related measures on the March ballot that would have affected a handful of businesses in unincorporated areas of the county. But the board postponed action on those initiatives, fearing voters would have been deluged.

"It just seems like there's so much on the ballot asking for money, that we just really have to pick the most important thing, and the most important thing for us is to get that health care tax done," Steele said.

Steele said she didn't know yet if the board would try to place the initiatives on the November ballot.

One of the measures would have eliminated a cap on the amount of utility taxes paid by four, high-utility use businesses in unincorporated areas. Another would have adjusted the business license tax paid by grocers in unincorporated areas. The change would have equalized the rate between small and large grocers; large grocers currently pay a lower rate.

Contact Michelle Maitre at mmaitre@angnewspapers.com.