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All about Marin: Proposed sales tax measure has something for everyone
(The Marin Independent Journal Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jul. 19--FOR MORE than a year, a proposed sales tax for county parks and open space has been headed for November's ballot.
As the tax measure approaches the deadline for county supervisors to decide whether to submit it to voters, it has taken a different, more expansive, look.
Besides supporting county parks and buying open space, the proposed quarter-cent sales tax increase would pay for continuing the county's wildland fire "fuel break" program and give Marin Agricultural Land Trust's ranchland preservation effort a cash infusion.
The latest addition to the tax proposal is "clean water," two words that are golden in winning voter approval.
The omnibus tax proposal is steaming to the supervisors propelled by results of a county voter poll this month that says 68 percent of Marin voters support the tax. The pollster, Oakland-based Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin and Associates, says it "would stand an excellent chance" of winning the two-thirds majority vote it needs to pass.
Only 18 percent of the voters quizzed said they would vote against it.
Supervisors have approached the measure with caution, worried that the economic slump could sour voters to a tax increase -- and concerned about competing with the SMART train tax that's on the same ballot in November.
Neither issue should dent support for the measure, the latest poll indicates.
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A petition aimed at blocking the county's plan to bulldoze a dog park across the street from the Civic
Center to make way for big public safety building may be in trouble.
Backers turned in 12,122 signatures, apparently more than needed to qualify for the ballot. The measure seeks to require voter approval of any large building constructed on the Civic Center grounds.
The problem is that they need signatures of registered Marin voters. The county elections office took a sample of 500 signatures, checked them out and found that only 87 percent of them were valid. That percentage would leave the petition just short of qualifying.
County officials are now busy checking each signature and hope to have the chore completed by the end of the month.
Backers of the petition drive are grumbling that county officials have been less than helpful, encouraging them to turn in the signatures before the legal deadline, and having county fair security guards ordering signature-gatherers away from the lines at the fair ticket booth.
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County sheriff's deputies have written a "social host" ticket stemming from a June 27 party they broke up in Dillon Beach.
They arrived with the county fire department after a Dillon Beach security guard reported a teen party in a rented home on Oceana Drive.
Deputies found 15 to 20 juveniles, including a teen girl who was so intoxicated she could not speak and was taken to the hospital. They also found 50 to 60 beer cans scattered around the backyard.
The adult who rented the house got the $750 ticket.
To see more of The Marin Independent Journal or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.marinij.com/.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Marin Independent Journal, Novato, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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