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San Diego City Councilwoman Donna Frye has formally requested a special meeting on a ballot measure that would include a package of reforms and a tax increase.
Frye made the request at this morning’s City Council meeting, a day after she voted to keep a half-cent sales tax increase off the ballot, saying the city hadn’t cut enough costs to ask voters to raise taxes.
Earlier today, Frye said she was interested in “establishing financial benchmarks in the ballot that need to be met in order to trigger the tax.”
The city faces a rapidly approaching Aug. 6 deadline to put measures on the November ballot.
City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said he was contacting San Diego County Registrar of Voters and the state’s Board of Equalization to see what was legally permissible.
“We’ll do what we can to provide a vehicle to do what council and the mayor want to do,” Goldsmith said. “It will be a challenge.”
Numerous challenges face any prospect of putting cost cuts on the ballot, such as defining how certain triggers need to be met, state labor law and rules for single arguments on ballot statements.
— LIAM DILLON