The City of Emeryville and Emery Unified School District are going to the voters for a pair of taxpayer funded ballot measures in March that would raise almost $4 million annually between them. The City is seeking passage of Measure F, a quarter cent sales tax that would raise approximately $2 million per year and Emery Unified is seeking passage of a new parcel tax, Measure K, that would raise about $1.8 million per year.
Both measures purport to fund a laundry list of items mixed with a crowd pleasing teaser; teacher pay increases advertised by the school district's Measure K and increased funding for the Emery Child Development Center from the City's Measure F ballot language. Neither measure however, guarantees funding for these specific issues, even though they figure prominently in the ballot language of the measures.
Measure F will fund personnel additions for the police department, the fire department as well as for code enforcement while Measure K is more nebulous, funding academic core programs as well as after school programs, sports, music and art programs.
Both Measures will require 66.7% of the electorate for passage.
The election will be on March 3rd.
Measure F – Measure for a Safer Emeryville is misnamed because the tax increase would fund both Public Safety AND Early Childhood Education. At least it should be broken into F.1 (Safety) and F.2 (Handouts to people with children < 5 years old – about 300 – who will move away eventually) so we can vote appropriately.
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