Why Neighbors are Voting No on Measure L

We Need A Plan for a Sustainable Berkeley Not $650 Million in Borrowing: Why Neighbors are Voting No on Measure L

Residents are feeling the squeeze from record inflation, and declines in retirement and education nest eggs. Now City Council wants residents to approve $650 million in borrowing – ballot Measure L. Here are some of the concerns being voiced by a diverse coalition of Berkeley residents, and why I am voting NO on Measure L.

Borrowing From Our Grandkids: After interest payments, Measure L will cost over $1.1 billion to finance or $8,938 per city resident and take 48 years to pay off. City Council is concerned that homeowners (who must pay off the debt) would get sticker shock if they used a traditional 30-year property tax repayment plan. So to make the repayment plan more “acceptable” they decided to extend the borrowing period from 30 years to 48 years, thereby  passing the cost on to future generations.

We Are Already Overdrawn: Berkeley residents recently voted to pass Measures O, P, M, T1, and FF. In sum, these measures have generated over $200 million in funds for affordable housing and road repair. Combined with other fees, these measures continue to produce tens of millions of dollars every year for affordable housing, homelessness, public safety, and disaster preparedness. Rather than work with this generous funding, City Council has manufactured an infrastructure crisis from years of bad budgeting and now wants to borrow hundreds of millions more to make up for it.

No Specific Plan or Guarantees: There is no plan for how Measure L funds would be spent, but Council has already promised more spending than the measure can support. Present or future Councils can use the money however they wish, regardless of how it is presented to voters. City Council gave itself complete discretion by declaring in the ballot measure: “These dollar amounts are estimates and are not a commitment or guarantee that any specific amounts will be spent on particular projects or categories of projects.”

 

Residents recognize it is vital to invest in Berkeley’s ailing infrastructure. However, we already spend more than double some neighboring cities and yet our outcomes are worse. Borrowing from our grandkids, to finance an overly ambitious laundry list of projects with no plan or guarantees, will not fix our infrastructure problem. A commitment of this scale, first requires thoughtful and deliberative planning and a long term budget strategy for maintaining our investments. Measure L provides none of this.

Please donate to this effort at:

https://berkeleyansforbetterplanning.org