By Sue Taylor
Dear San Diego City Council Members:
I was born in the City of San Diego and graduated from Point Loma High School. I worked for the City of San Diego for 41 years, and I am also a volunteer with the San Diego Police Department. I now live just outside the City limits, about two and a half miles from Council District 9.
I want to directly challenge the claim that only City residents “pay for” Balboa Park. That claim may be convenient, but it is not how the City’s finances actually work.
Yes, only City residents pay property tax to the City. But what is consistently left out of this discussion is that most of any property tax bill does not go to the City at all. It goes to schools and the county. For a typical City household, only a few hundred dollars a year from their property tax actually ends up in the City’s General Fund. At the same time, a very large share of the City’s General Fund comes from sales tax and the hotel tax. Those taxes are paid heavily by non-City residents and by visitors.
Every time someone from Spring Valley, La Mesa, or Chula Vista shops in Mission Valley, eats in the Convoy District, goes to a Padres game, or spends money anywhere else in the City of San Diego, they are paying sales taxes that go directly to the City. And the whole point of the hotel tax is to have visitors help pay for the costs and attractions of being a tourist city. Balboa Park is one of the most important of those attractions.
It is also worth remembering that many City of San Diego employees do not live within the City limits, and many volunteers who donate their time to the City of San Diego do not either. Are we really prepared to say those people are “non-contributors”?
Balboa Park is not a neighborhood park. It is a regional asset, and it is supported by a regional and visitor-based economy. For that reason, singling out non-residents for paid parking is based on a false premise about who actually pays for Balboa Park and who supports the City’s budget.
I am opposed to the proposed ballot proposition because it does not go far enough. Paid parking should be eliminated for all City and County residents.
Respectfully submitted, Sue Taylor
Ms. Taylor’s letter’s letter opposing free Sunday parking in Balboa Park was premised on promoting and expanding the regional and tourism visitor economy. Sorry I believe in Global Warming and the creeping Climate Change crisis.
Tourism travel and regional vehicle travel is based on burning fossil fuels to get there. (I acknowledge that there are unique exceptions but none that outbalance the CO2 harms). No tourism hotel art or tourism attraction fully pays for the harms they cause or the City infrastructures needed to support them. The only Tourism venue that approaches fully reimbursing the City for its support costs is SeaWorld. The worst impactor is the San Diego Zoo which pays the City nothing for its impacts and receives some $22 Million in City tax dollars, rent free land, and makes enough off admissions to pay the Zoo CEO some $2 million! Reforms addressing Climate Change begins with us Walk, Bike, or take the trolley