Artesia News

Prop 22 seeks to prevent State from using municipal funds

In June, the California Secretary of State announced that there would be up to 10 ballot propositions on California's November 2010 statewide ballot.

Among the ten measures is Proposition 22, a statewide initiative constitutional amendment. In the official ballot title, the Attorney General says Proposition 22 "Prohibits the State from Borrowing or Taking Funds Used for Transportation, Redevelopment, or Local Government Projects and Services."

Following are the major provisions of the constitutional amendment:

- Revokes the state's ability to borrow local government property tax funds that are u sed to fund local services like police, fire, emergency response, parks, libraries, and other local government services.

- Prevents the state from redirecting or diverting locally levied taxes, including parcel taxes, sales taxes, utility user taxes, TOT's and other locally imposed taxes taht are currently passed by local governmetns and/or their voters.

- Adds additional constitutional protections to prevent the state from taking redevelopment funds to other state purposes.

Proponents say this measure is needed because, over the past several years, the state has passed budgets that have diverted or borrowed billions of dollars in local government, transportation and redevelopment funds.

In Artesia, the City has paid $542,000 in its own Redevelopment funds.

To view the official ballot guide, visit the Secretary of State's website at www.ss.ca.gov.