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Sacramento County, CA November 7, 2006 Election
Smart Voter

Economic Development

By Thomas J. "Tom" Malson

Candidate for Council Member; City of Galt

This information is provided by the candidate
To have any economic development discussion, we must first understand our city's sales tax situation. Galt is listed in the bottom 15% of all California cities in sales tax revenues per resident (Source: Computations by CaliforniaCityFinance.com from State Controller and Dept of Finance data. 1991-2003).
To put it into perspective:
  • #56 West Sacramento $279/person
  • #76 Folsom $239/person
  • #140 Sacramento $180/person
  • #204 Lodi $143/person
  • #207 Isleton $142/person
  • #209 Elk Grove $142/person
  • #214 Stockton $140/person
  • #252 Citrus Heights $124/person
  • #414 Galt $42/person

This is not because our citizens do not spend about the same, on average, as all the residents in these other cities. It is because our citizens spend more of their money in these other cities. This is called "sales tax leakage" and for those of you shopping in San Joaquin County we actually receive NO sales tax returned to our city. I found it "interesting" that at a sales tax leakage rate initially estimated at $18,000,000 for the entire Galt area (not just the City), meant that no big box store would be interested ("leakage would have to be over $25,000,000 for any of them to show interest). When these figures were revised and our leakage was estimated at over $25,000,000, Wal Mart had their development application in within 2-weeks of that information being made public.

We need to increase our jobs to housing ratio and work on attracting business to our city. With gas prices going up, we need more employment in Galt where people can walk to work from where they live. Since 2002 we have built out the Raleys shopping Center, started construction on a 3-story Comfort Inn, have Wal Mart and a developer with a movie complex interested in our city.

We must work to increase our cities tax base. Property taxes on residential units alone are not enough to sustain city services. I will work toward increasing our retail and commercial tax base to insure a sound and balanced general fund on which to operate our city. In addition, we should pursue cost effective joint use facilities for our City, Schools, Fire and transportation services.

"Wal Mart":

The best quote I have heard is "would you rather have a Wal Mart 8-miles north AND one 8-miles south of your town, or would you rather have one IN your town"? I refer you back to the sales tax discussion above under Economic Development . . .

However, any big box store proposing to locate in our city would have some pretty tall hurdles to overcome. We are requiring the Wal Mart developer to pay the city to have what is the equivalent of an economic impact report performed on their proposal, in addition to the standard required CEQA Environmental Impact Report. At this point I have questions, like many of you, such as traffic mitigation's without having an upgraded overpass on Galt Market days, impacts on existing city businesses, design considerations, "regular" Vs. "super" Wal Mart and reuse when Wal Mart leaves (and they do leave).

As a Council Member I consider it my job to withhold any pre-judgment on an issue until all the facts are on the table from all parties involved, no matter how I may personally feel about it. Therefore, I must wait for these reports, the public comment period on these reports and then weigh all the information and comments before I make a decision on this matter. It is only fair to our staff who have been working on this project, the developer who has been paying for all this work, our local businesses and our citizens who this project will impact.

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ca/sac Created from information supplied by the candidate: November 1, 2006 21:21
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