In a move to keep alive San Diego’s defeated hotel tax hike initiative, the City Council agreed this week that it would not characterize the November election outcome as a defeat.

Bowing to a request from backers of Measure C, the council on Tuesday broke from tradition when certifying the March 3 election results and stated only the number of yes and no votes for the initiative, which had required a two-thirds majority vote for approval. It came quite close — 65.24 percent — but still fell short of the nearly 67 percent needed.

“I am concerned that we are throwing out the will of 65 percent and more of San Diegans who voted in favor of this measure,” Councilwoman Jennifer Campbell said of proposed city language stating that Measure C failed to pass.

Deleted Tuesday from the wording in a proposed City Council resolution was a passage stating “Measure C did not receive the affirmative vote of at least two-thirds of the qualified voters voting on the measure and is hereby declared to have been defeated.”


While the City Attorney’s office advised the council that it was not violating any state or municipal law by declining to state that the measure failed to pass, its action would not be consistent with what is normally done when certifying election results.

“I can’t predict exactly how a court will interpret the removal,” said Deputy City Attorney Sanna Singer. “I can just speak to what we’ve traditionally done.”

The move to eliminate any reference to the measure’s defeat in the city’s official resolution did not sit well with Councilwoman Barbara Bry, who noted that she had voted in favor of Measure C. The voters’ pamphlet, she said, clearly stated that a two-thirds majority was required.

“I will be voting no on this measure today because to do so is to break faith with the voters,” said Bry, who is running for mayor. Joining her in voting against the revised language were Councilwomen Vivian Moreno and Monica Montgomery.


Also objecting to the council action was Alliance San Diego, a grassroots group that had originally opposed placing the measure on the March ballot, arguing that a 2016 initiative approved by the voters required that citizens’ initiatives be reserved for general elections.

“Tell the voters which ballot measures won and which lost,” Andrea Guerrero, executive director of Alliance San Diego, said in a statement Tuesday. “Instead of dealing straight, the majority of council members played a shell game to give proponents of Measure C a leg up in their long-shot litigation strategy to change the vote threshold after the fact.”

A broad coalition of business, tourism and labor leaders, which had backed Measure C, are still banking on higher court rulings that could potentially conclude that, contrary to the California Constitution, a simple majority is all that is needed to pass a tax increase when proposed as part of a citizens’ initiative.

While the supporters acknowledged during the campaign that their measure needed a two-thirds majority to pass, they now want the option of waiting out the results of still pending litigation that originated in San Francisco before giving up on the tax hike, which would have raised close to $7 billion over 45 years. In addition to the convention center project and homeless initiatives, the measure would also have helped pay for road repairs.


Last year, a San Francisco Superior Court judge concluded that two San Francisco tax measures that did not capture two-thirds majority support were valid because the higher threshold only applied to measures placed on the ballot by lawmakers. A Fresno judge, however, ruled differently, concluding that a 2018 initiative raising sales taxes to improve Fresno’s city parks failed because it needed a supermajority but only received a little over 52 percent.

It is likely that the issue will not be sorted out until it reaches the California Supreme Court.

In a legal memo this week to Keith Maddox, who heads the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, its attorneys noted the possibility of litigation against the city by Measure C proponents should the council choose to formally declare the defeat of the initiative.

“Those of us who worked hard on Measure C wanted to make sure in the future, that if rulings are favorable in San Francisco, that the measure, with 65, percent approval will have passed and will be allowed to be enacted,” said Tourism Authority CEO Joe Terzi, a longtime advocate of a convention center expansion. “This is still a really important initiative, but we are still looking at other options to find additional sources of funding other than what we pursued with Measure C.”


Terzi declined to divulge what other ideas supporters are pursuing.

