The City Attorney’s Office has agreed to look further into whether a levy on property taxes in San Diego to pay for the San Diego Zoo’s animal exhibits maintenance can be used to fix Balboa Park’s infrastructure.
Deputy City Attorney Brant Will said his office stands behind a 2004 opinion that modifications to the tax would violate the state constitution, but he agreed to a request by City Council President Sherri Lightner to take a look at the definition of “zoological exhibit,” which could refer to other areas of the park.
Her request came during a hearing of the council’s Charter Review Committee, which is sorting through a long series of suggestions of ways to clarify, streamline and modernize provisions of the City Charter, the city’s primary governing document.
Sometime civic activist John Stump has proposed changes for more than a decade to the tax, which was instituted in 1934 when the zoo was in financial trouble. The levy, which is codified in the City Charter, collects a half-cent for every $100 of assessed property in San Diego.
According to the city’s independent budget analyst’s office, the levy is projected to bring in $11.7 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1, and the money can only be used to maintain zoological exhibits. San Diego Zoo Global, the nonprofit that runs the zoo and Safari Park, earns $269 million in annual income and has assets of $451 million, Jeff Kawar of the office said.
Kawar estimated that the whole of Balboa Park has about $300 million worth of unmet maintenance needs.
The members of the committee referred several other proposals on budgetary issues to staff for further study, including whether and how the City Charter should refer to the mayor’s five-year budget outlook, which is issued each fall, and an annual resolution by the City Council that provides a budgetary wish list to the mayor’s office.
The committee is wading through the ideas this spring and providing direction to staff. More specific proposals are expected by fall, and prospective charter revisions could go before voters next year.
— City News Service
