By Sarah Lombardo
A misunderstanding over the ballot wording of Measure L, the utility user's tax, was cleared up at Wednesday night's City Council meeting.
The discussion was initiated by questions from Saratoga resident Lou Thorpe, who said he did not understand why the ballot wording stated the tax would be extended until Jan.1, 2001, from June 1, 2000, when the tax is scheduled to expire automatically.
In previous addresses to the council, Thorpe said it sounded to him as if a vote against the tax meant that the city would continue to collect it for those last six months.
Mayor Paul Jacobs said that was not the intention of the ballot wording.
In a written statement that Jacobs provided for Thorpe and read aloud for the council, he stated, "The interpretation that the only thing we are asking the voters is whether or not they agree to continue the tax from June 1, 2000, to Jan 1, 2001, may be a technically correct interpretation, but it is one that was never contemplated by the council. . . . The simple interpretation [of the ballot statement] is the one that the council has always intended: A 'yes' vote means the tax continues until Jan.1, 2001. A 'no' vote means that the council will repeal the tax immediately."According to Jacobs, the ballot asks voters to decide on an extension of the tax from June to January because elections in Saratoga have been moved from June to November, and to end or continue the tax five months before an election seemed impractical.
"Maybe a better word would have been 'continue' instead of 'extend,'" Jacobs said.
Jacobs said that although he understood how Thorpe could have interpreted the ballot the way he did, he did not think many other voters would misunderstand the wording.
But Thorpe disagreed.
"Do you think it's possible that a voter could misinterpret the ballot statement and say, 'Well, you know, it's only six more months. I'll go ahead and vote for it'?"
"I feel confident that Saratoga voters do not suffer from analysis paralysis," said councilman Don Wolfe, who also pointed out that anyone who had questions about the ballot and was watching the council meeting on Saratoga's community channel, KSAR, would now understand.
Councilwoman Ann Marie Burger said she agreed with Jacobs' answer to Thorpe's question. "I think the mayor's statement clarifies exactly what we had in mind from the very beginning," Burger said.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, October 9, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved