San Pablo voters in Tuesday’s election appear to have approved a sales tax put on the ballot by the City Council, while also supporting a rent control citizen initiative placed on the ballot by local tenant advocates, according to initial results from Contra Costa County elections officials.
Measure R had 71.6% support in the early returns for the proposed sales tax, which would be a half-cent for five years and then a quarter-cent for the next five years to pay for general city services. It would bring in an estimated $2 million annually for those first five years if approved by a majority vote.
City officials said San Pablo faces dwindling revenue from the San Pablo Lytton Casino, which accounts for nearly 59% of the city’s annual general fund revenue.
Measure R was opposed by organizations like the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association and the Libertarian Party of Contra Costa County.
The rent control initiative, Measure S, went on the ballot after a signature-gathering campaign by the local tenant advocate group Rising Juntos and had 59.5% of the initial vote Tuesday.
Measure S, which also needs just a simple majority to approve it, would restrict landlords in San Pablo from increasing rent by more than 3% annually, create a city-administered complaint process, prohibit landlords from evicting renters without a valid legal reason, and provide relocation assistance for renters, among other changes to the city’s housing laws.
Elected officials including Mayor Elizabeth Pabon-Alvarado and Vice Mayor Rita Xavier wrote the ballot argument against Measure S, saying it “creates a new, costly regulatory program,” but voters appear to support it.
Earlier Tuesday, city officials sent an alert saying ballots sent to voters in the Idle Wheels Mobile Home Park on San Pablo Avenue inadvertently excluded the local measures as well as two at-large City Council seats. The city urged voters to go to one of three nearby polling locations to request a provisional ballot before polls closed Tuesday.
The initial results included counted vote-by-mail ballots and in-person ballots from early voting sites. County elections officials said the election night report often only represents about half of the total votes cast. The next report will be posted by 5 p.m. Friday.
