Council Moves to Draft Parcel Tax for Fall Ballot

The Pasadena City Council on Monday directed city staff to draft a parcel-tax measure for the November ballot to rebuild the city’s earthquake-vulnerable fire stations, racing towards an Aug. 7 county deadline that leaves barely three weeks to finalize the proposal.

The unanimous vote, on a motion by Councilmember Rick Cole and seconded by Councilmember Steve Madison, does not place the tax on the ballot. Rather, it instructs staff to prepare the measure, along with a detailed spending plan, for the council to consider at a meeting staff wants to hold Aug. 3 — the last practical date before the county’s Aug. 7 cutoff for the Nov. 3 general municipal election.

Councilmembers were pointed about that distinction.

“We haven’t actually approved anything yet,” Councilmember Tyron Hampton said, cautioning that the night’s action only brought the measure back for further work.

Councilmember Jason Lyon said he did not want to see a headline reporting that the council had approved two tax measures for the ballot, “because that’s not what’s happening.”

The measure would focus narrowly on the Fire Department. As described by councilmembers and staff, it would fund rebuilding fire stations that are not seismically safe, a city-owned fire headquarters and a live-fire training center.

Madison pressed to include constructing a new fire station drawn from the department’s long-term capital plan. Interim City Manager Matthew Hawkesworth said a new station is not in the city’s current five-year capital budget — but noted one is part of the Fire Department’s 10-year plan.

Staff described that underlying 10-year plan as broader still, spanning the rebuild of at least two stations, the building of an additional station, and added rescue ambulances, fire engines and trucks — along with the personnel to staff them — as well as operational needs such as paramedic service and year-round brush clearance.

In settling on fire, the council set aside — at least for now — the other options staff had presented in a review of general fund revenue sources: a real estate transfer tax, a transaction-and-use (sales) tax, a parking tax and a business gross-receipts tax.

A push by Hampton to advance a parking tax alongside the fire measure drew resistance from Lyon, who warned that putting two tax questions on the same ballot could cannibalize each other’s support and cost the fire measure the two-thirds vote it needs to pass. The council agreed by consensus to bring back more information on a parking tax next week without taking a vote.

Because the fire-related tax would be a special parcel tax, the measure would require two-thirds voter approval to pass.

Several members and staff said a two-thirds vote could be a heavy lift on a crowded ballot.

Hawkesworth pointed to the city’s library general obligation bond, approved by voters in 2024 with strong community backing, as the model for what any successful measure would need, noting it also required two-thirds.

Lyon cited “parcel tax fatigue” in the wake of the school district’s tax measure two years earlier.

Cole warned that the city would be competing for voters’ attention amidst 14 state ballot measures, including some $44 billion in state bond proposals.

The fire focus drew directly on last year’s Eaton fire and recent seismic activity.

Mayor Victor Gordo said two back-to-back earthquakes in the 4.3 range struck near the San Andreas fault over the weekend, and leaving fire stations unsafe for the very personnel residents rely on in an emergency, was unacceptable.

Cost estimates cited during the meeting varied. Cole said the city has estimated it needs about $181 million to bring its fire stations up to modern standards, a figure he traced to 2023. Gordo said a single new station build runs about $34 million to $35 million.

Staff estimated a parcel tax could generate roughly $30 million, compared with about $26 million for a transfer tax, according to figures Madison cited from the staff report.

The city’s current training site is leased from the Pasadena Unified School District at the former Jefferson Elementary School campus on Villa Street, Fire Chief Chad Augustin said. That site does not accommodate live-fire training, Madison noted.

The chief said regional grant funding had fallen from $24 million to $11 million over five years, and that a longer-term partnership with Pasadena City College on a training facility could be eight to 10 years away.

Several residents urged the council to instead, or also, pursue a real estate transfer tax dedicated to affordable housing and homelessness prevention, pointing to similar taxes on high-value property sales in cities such as Santa Monica and Richmond. Those requests did not advance Monday.

City staff is now expected to return with a fire expenditure plan, and potentially draft resolutions, in the coming weeks.

The council’s next regular meeting is July 20, with a finalizing meeting to decide whether to place the measure before voters set for July 27 or Aug. 3 — staff’s preferred date — ahead of the county’s deadline.