CALIFORNIA: Less than two weeks after voting to pursue a tax on marijuana businesses to help pay for housing and health services for the homeless, Los Angeles County supervisors appear poised to pull the measure from the November ballot.
County officials debated several potential tax measures to fund expanded efforts to reduce homelessness in the county, including a “millionaires tax” on high-income earners, a sales tax and a property tax, but those proposals ran into roadblocks or failed to get the needed level of support on the board.
The board ultimately approved the marijuana tax measure in a 3-2 vote earlier this month. County analysts estimated that the proposed 10% levy on the gross receipts of marijuana businesses would raise up to $130 million a year for mental health and substance abuse treatment, rental subsidies, emergency housing and other services aimed at getting people out of homelessness.
But the bulk of that revenue would come only if California voters decide to legalize recreational marijuana in a separate November measure.
On Friday, Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, who wrote the marijuana tax proposal, introduced a new motion to rescind the vote and stop the measure from going on the ballot.
Kuehl said there had been “a good deal of ambivalence” about the marijuana tax proposal among service providers, particularly substance abuse treatment providers, who were not enthusiastic about legalizing marijuana. She said she worried it would be difficult to get the needed two-thirds majority among voters without a united front of support among homeless advocates.
“We certainly didn’t want to raise millions of dollars for a campaign and have it fail by two or three points,” she said.
The withdrawal of the marijuana measure would probably mean that no county tax measure on homelessness will appear on the November ballot, which is already crowded with tax proposals, including a $1.2-billion bond initiative by the city of Los Angeles to build more housing for the homeless. That money could not be used to pay for services.
The ballot is also expected to include a countywide sales tax increase to fund transportation projects, a parcel tax for parks, and a community college bond measure.
