Tax Committee's Final Advice Targets Recreational, Cultural Facilities

The Municipal Tax Review Committee has just one item on its agenda for its last scheduled : approval of its final report. In its wake, the vote could leave some recreational and cultural facilities around town on shaky ground.

A pointed list of recommendations for curtailing spending accompanies the committee's rationalization for its conclusion in the report that the municipal services parcel tax should be renewed at the current rate for another four years. Several of those recommendations have already ruffled more than a few feathers.

First, a suggestion that the city will not be able to sustain the construction and maintenance costs of the proposed development of sparked heated debate over whether an endorsement of the parcel tax should hinge on financial guarantees for the project.

Even after renewed promises from the project's backers that they would not leave the city high and dry, the committee wrote in its report that before committing to the construction of sports fields at Blair, the city should get independent cost estimates and set up user fees to cover all operating expenses for the planned facilities.

On the heels of that discussion, the committee concluded that the , which the city took over July 1, should pay for itself too. Despite an impassioned argument from former Swim Club board member Jon Sakol that the pool cannot survive without a subsidy, the committee is recommending that the city eliminate it.

In the final iteration of the report, to be voted on today, the committee additionally waves a fiscal red flag over Piedmont's payment to Oakland for and the rehabilitation of a city-owned building at 801 Magnolia Ave to house an that just opened Sunday.

Ultimately, the feather ruffling from the committee's recommendations will likely not be limited to supporters of Piedmont's recreational and cultural facilities.

The biggest ticket item that the committee set its sights on is municipal employee benefit costs, which have been growing by about $1.8 million a year since 2006 and now consume about 24 percent of the city's budget. But public discussion of the committee's recommendations for keeping benefit costs from expanding further have so far been restrained due to ongoing closed-door negotiations between the city and its unions.