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BY BRIAN HEWS • NOVEMBER 13, 2019
Citing Sacramento as the cause of the City’s revenue problem, the Lakewood City Council voted to place a 3/4 cent sales tax on the 2020 ballot at this past Tuesday’s regular City Council meeting.
City officials stated that the State of California has taken over $30 million in local property tax dollars from Lakewood over the past eight years, and will continue to take approximately $2 million every year on into the future.
The take-away has resulted in Lakewood having to make significant budget cuts over the past two years, including to public safety as well as parks and facility maintenance in order to maintain a balanced budget.
The sales tax measure would raise approximately $10 million a year, an amount that would be “just sufficient” to meet the City’s budget deficit in the years ahead and to fund and maintain City services.
It would take the tax rate from 9.50% to 10.25%.
The “Lakewood Public Safety/Local Control Measure” was developed after nearly a year of community-centered outreach following the adoption of the 2018-2019 budget, after State takeaways had begun to impact Lakewood’s services to residents.
“The City of Lakewood has been engaging residents on their service priorities and our budget situation for several months now. Thank you to the hundreds of residents who took the time to participate,” said Mayor Todd Rogers.
“We’re at a crossroads,” said Rogers. “Either we generate more revenue for Lakewood or we make deep cuts in our services to residents, including parks, community services and even public safety. And those would be cuts that would change Lakewood from the way we’ve known it for many years.”
The measure includes strict accountability requirements, including mandatory financial audits and the creation of a Citizens Oversight Committee, to ensure that all funds are spent in Lakewood as promised.
Details on the Lakewood Public Safety/Local Control Measure can be viewed at www.lakewoodcity.org/StaffReport.
If Lakewood readers/voters remember a large store in Marina Pacifica, Long Beach, moved out of Long Beach because of high sales tax and re-located in Lakewood. With proposed Hi sales tax the City of Lakewood, wonder how many stores will leave the city? South Coast Plaza is not very far south of Lakewood, many of North Orange County and Long Beach will be shopping in South Coast Plaza where they can enjoy the sales tax rate, classier malls and more abundance of stores.
For a fact, many residents in the city of Cerritos have boycotted the city of Cerritos Shopping centers, because of a high sales tax rate, they shop at Buena Park Mall, Cypress Mall, Rossmoor Mall, SA Mall, Home Depot in Yorba Linda and Brea Mall because of the lower sales tax rate. Even one of the retired mayors of Cerritos went public and stated that she shops at South Coast Plaza because of lower sales tax rate and more availability.
To pass a high sales tax rate, hi sales tax rate passed on to car sales also, so you’re seeing more and more people change their home address to an Orange County address in order purchase a car in Orange County at cheaper sales tax rate. Still seeing many people buyers going to Arizona and Oregon to purchase Cars / RV and expensive computers/ TV/ cameras, since they have no sales tax.
Cerritos has same sales tax increase on the ballot, will fail, as Chinese are very frugal. BB School Bond did pass in Cerritos, now the city has many real estate foreclosures and over 37% homes are being used for rental stock.