SANTA CRUZ >> The Santa Cruz City Council unanimously declared a fiscal emergency on Tuesday afternoon, preparing to place a revenue-raising sales tax measure before voters on the June ballot.

Separately, the council agreed to ask voters in the same election whether they back a 19,500-student enrollment cap at UC Santa Cruz, in light of projected student growth of up to 28,000 in the next two decades. The initiative would hold no power over the university, but serve as a message to local and state officials, council members said.

If more than 50 percent of voters approve the proposed quarter of a percent increase to the city’s sales tax, city customers would pay a total 9.25 percent tax on purchases of goods in the city. The sales tax would funnel an estimated $3 million in new revenue annually into the city’s general fund, which primarily pays for services such as police, fire and parks.

An earlier discussed soda tax measure was removed from consideration after council debate at its Feb. 13 meeting.

City Finance Director Marcus Pimentel said that increased sales tax revenue from the proposed ballot measure will not eliminate projected city general fund deficits slated to reach as high as $23 million by 2022, but rather serve to reduce them. Pimentel cited the following causes for the projected deficit: a drop in tax revenue, state pension investment shortfalls, increases to core city costs and infrastructure decay.

“We’re in a brave new world of public finance and our community values its municipal services and we want to be able to fulfill those expectations,” Councilwoman Cynthia Mathews said.

Councilwoman Sandy Brown joined in support of the tax measure and emergency declaration, for which a unanimous council vote was required, with the condition that a council ad-hoc revenue committee be renewed to draft additional “progressive” tax ballot measures, such as increasing a city tax on hotel users or for second-home owners renting out their Santa Cruz property. Progressive taxes are said to have a greater financial impact on higher-income individuals and businesses, while regressive taxes, such as sales taxes, more significantly impact low-income earners, according to IRS publications.

“We’re not operating in any sort of ideal situation, here. In an ideal situation, the council itself would be able to raise revenue itself without having to go through a ballot measure every single time,” Councilwoman Richelle Noroyan said, saying she would prefer to support progressive taxes as well. “The fact that we aren’t working in the ideal, I think, requires us to go forward on things that, in a perfect situation, we wouldn’t necessarily be in favor of.”

The proposed sales tax increase would bring Santa Cruz in line with Watsonville’s rate, and place the city above Capitola and Scotts Valley, each at 9 percent, and unincorporated Santa Cruz County, at 8.5 percent. Of the 9.25 percent sales tax customers would pay in Santa Cruz, were the measure to pass, 1.75 percent would go directly to the city’s coffers, Pimentel said.

Deborah Narvaez, regional director for the Service Employees International Union, spoke in support of the ballot measure, to raise revenues to maintain city services.

In other agenda items, the council voted to:

• Send a letter to Congressmembers Jimmy Panetta and Anna Eshoo expressing concerns about the Federal Aviation Administration’s report on Phase II of its “Initiative to Address Noise Concerns of Santa Cruz/Santa Clara/San Mateo/San Francisco Counties.” The city attorney also will investigate related National Environmental Policies Act issues related to the report.

• Approve, in a second and final action, new provisions related to landlord duties to pay tenant relocation costs when the tenant is evicted due to unsafe or hazardous living conditions or due to illegal use of the structure as a residence.

• Place on the June 5 ballot a proposal to repeal Measure K, a 2006 ballot measure requiring local law enforcement to make enforcement of adult distribution, sale, cultivation or use of marijuana their lowest priority. The change comes in the wake of the legalizing recreational marijuana, which makes the city measure obsolete.