A new group called “Let’s Go San Diego” is pushing petitions to put a half-cent sales tax on the November ballot. The tax would go towards the recently passed SANDAG transportation plan that will cost taxpayers $160 billion. But with rising prices due to inflation and many other world events, many say that this is the wrong time to raise taxes and make life even more expensive in San Diego. The group pushing the petition is heavily endorsed by big labor unions and the San Diego Democrat Party. The reason for the labor unions’ push is that they will receive contracts and work from the SANDAG plan.
El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells spoke against the proposal in an interview with KUSI and said that this private group is trying to circumvent the need for a 2/3rds majority vote for any tax increase, “If a private group puts a ballot measure on the ballot, they only have to get 50 percent. So this labor union kind of circumventing SANDAG and SANDAG is kind of giving a wink and a nod saying ‘Oh we don’t know anything about this’ and it’s kind of a scam”. Wells says that the private group is working with the labor unions since the labor unions will receive work from the SANDAG plan as SANDAG does not approve work without Project Labor Agreements. Wells also said that almost no one wants this sort of investment in public transportation. Wells said that the people who support this plan want us to be more like New York City and take public transit everywhere, but San Diego is a large county and many people enjoy driving.
This isn’t the only tax being considered. Another sales tax could be on the 2028 ballot along with the new mileage tax which is the big piece of the SANDAG plan. Wells said that the plan is really about getting people out of their cars, which the plan openly states. With our gas prices already being some of the highest and the taxes we already pay, it seems ridiculous to pass even more taxes, especially towards projects that will already take decades to finish and are almost certain to be massively over budget. Wells cites the TRANSNET tax as an example of government spending wasted, “When they originally gave us the 14 billion dollar TRANSNET tax, they said they would be fixing all the freeways but 15 of the projects they said they were going to be fixing are not done”.
Photo Cred: SANDAG
