Welcome to the effort to defeat the proposed expansion of Pleasant Hill's utility tax!

On July 19, the City Council voted unanimously to place a new utility tax ordinance, called Measure 'T', on the ballot coming up on November 2, 2010. The existing utility tax applies only to land-line phone service, and is set at 1%. The new tax would raise the rate to 1.5%, but would also expand it to be charged on ALL utilities, including electricity, cell phones, water, data lines, and sewer.

Called the "Utility Users Tax" or UUT, the City claims it needs this new tax to balance the budget. But it is our belief that raising taxes in the middle of the worst recession since the great depression is the wrong thing to do. Instead the City should be doing all it can to reduse spending, curtailing, suspending or cutting programs, renegotiating pension benefits and City contributions to those programs, and postponing capital improvement projects until the economy recovers.