The measure would add a 7% tax to your electricity, gas, water, and phone bills — the highest utility users' tax rate anywhere on the Monterey Peninsula — in the city that can least afford it. And despite the "911" title, not one dollar is legally required to go to police, fire, or emergency services.
No city near us charges 7%. Seaside charges 6%. Salinas charges 5–6% depending on the utility. Pacific Grove charges 5%. Monterey charges residents just 2%. And Carmel, Sand City, and Del Rey Oaks charge no utility users' tax at all. Statewide, the most common UUT rate is 5%.
Marina would leap past every neighbor — straight to the top.
Sources: City of Seaside Finance Dept.; City of Monterey Finance Dept.; City of Salinas Finance Dept.; City of Pacific Grove UUT ordinance (5% on telephone, electricity, gas, cable and water, per MuniServices/uutinfo.org); California City Finance UUT survey. Monterey's commercial rate is 5%. Carmel, Sand City, and Del Rey Oaks levy no UUT.
This is a general tax. Under California law, that means every dollar goes into the city's general fund, where the council can spend it on anything — salaries, consultants, new city facilities — with a simple majority vote.
Why does that matter? Because a tax actually dedicated to 911, police, and fire would be a special tax, requiring two-thirds voter approval and legally binding spending restrictions. The city chose not to write it that way. The measure lists firefighters, EMTs, and earthquakes in its title — but carefully avoids promising any of them a single dollar.
The "spending disclosures" and "audits" in the measure tell you where the money went after the fact. They don't restrict where it can go.
They wrote a general tax instead — because a general tax needs only 50% + 1 to pass, and comes with no strings attached.
MARINA 911 EMERGENCY, PUBLIC SAFETY, AND COMMUNITY SERVICES MEASURE. To ensure firefighters, EMTs, police officers, emergency operations, response to emergencies and natural disasters including earthquakes; repair and upgrade police/fire/city buildings; protect water supply; repair streets/potholes; and provide general city services, shall the City of Marina's measure establishing a 7% utility users' tax with low-income rates, generating approximately $3,830,000 annually until ended by voters, requiring spending disclosures, audits, all funds spent locally, be adopted?
"Provide general city services" is the phrase that makes this a general tax. Everything before it is a list of examples — not a legal commitment. There is no sunset date: the tax continues forever unless voters mount another campaign to end it.Marina is the Peninsula's workforce city — home to a larger share of tradespeople, service workers, and working families than our wealthier neighbors. Median household incomes here run below Monterey (about $103,000), Pacific Grove (about $106,000), and far below Carmel and Del Rey Oaks.
A utility tax is one of the most regressive taxes a city can impose. Everyone needs electricity, heat, water, and a phone — so a flat 7% takes a far bigger bite out of a working family's budget than out of a wealthy household's. Every wealthier city nearby charges less — or nothing at all. The city that can least afford a utility tax is being asked to charge the most.
And the timing could not be worse. Marina households are already squeezed by higher grocery and fuel prices, repeated PG&E rate increases, rising Marina Coast Water District (MCWD) water and sewer rates adopted in 2025, and Monterey One Water (M1W) wastewater charges — which more than doubled between 2021 and 2025 and are now set to climb again every year through 2031 under the five-year schedule M1W's board approved in June 2026. A 7% city tax stacked on top of those growing utility bills doesn't just add a new charge — it grows automatically every time rates go up, because it's a percentage of a bill that keeps getting bigger.
The measure's "low-income rates" help only those poor enough to qualify. The working families in the middle — the electricians, cooks, caregivers, and CSUMB staff who keep this region running — pay the full 7%, every month, forever.
Sources: Monterey One Water adopted rate schedule (sewer charges rose 122% from 2021 to 2025, with further annual increases approved June 2026 through 2031); KQED analysis of PG&E charges (average combined residential bill up ~67%, from $179/mo in 2020 to ~$300/mo in 2025); Insurify home insurance reports (U.S. rates +20% over 2023–24; California projected +21% in 2025); S&P Global / L.A. Times (California's top auto insurers received approved increases of 13% in 2023, 15.4% in 2024, and 6% in 2025); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI (gasoline +26.7% for the 12 months ending June 2026; food-at-home up ~25% cumulatively since 2020; all-items CPI-U up ~25% from its 2020 annual average through 2025, still rising 3.5% year-over-year as of June 2026). Marina Coast Water District also adopted new, higher water and sewer rates effective July 2025. Timeframes vary by category as noted. Note that sewer, electricity, and insurance costs have all risen far faster than overall inflation.
You can skip a restaurant meal. You can't skip your electric bill.
While City Hall asks residents to accept the Peninsula's highest utility tax, it has been busy giving taxes away to well-connected businesses:
In May 2025, the council agreed to hand back half of the city's local sales tax share generated by the planned dealership — an estimated $5 million over seven years. When the developer missed its January 2026 construction deadline, the council simply extended it.
The city is discussing a significant rebate of the 14% transient occupancy tax — the "bed tax" paid by hotel guests, one of the few taxes locals don't pay — for a hotelier. [Insert council meeting date and agenda item before publishing.]
For decades the city has extended incentives and redevelopment-era assistance to build out The Dunes and other projects — support residents estimate at over $100 million to Shea alone. [Cite the redevelopment agreements or staff reports for the dollar figure before publishing.]
A new 7% tax on your electricity, gas, water, and phone — $3.83 million a year, permanently.
If the city can afford to rebate taxes to corporations, it doesn't need the highest utility tax on the Peninsula from working families.
Marina's growth — thousands of new homes at The Dunes, Sea Haven, and Marina Station — has been planned for nearly two decades. A growing city on this footprint needs fire coverage in North Marina. The city has known this the entire time. And the city's own revenue projections show its tax income growing as that development builds out — new homes, new stores, new hotel rooms all add to the general fund every year.
Yet with all the leverage of those development agreements — the same agreements through which the city handed out incentives — City Hall has not built a new fire station. Worse, the city let go of the opportunity at Marina Station to set aside land for a North Marina fire station. [Cite the specific council action and date before publishing.]
Instead of building the fire station it could already have built, the city has bundled it into one giant wish list: a fire station, plus a new police station, plus a new city hall, plus more spending on its water fights — and asks you to fund the whole bundle with a permanent 7% tax. That's not a public safety plan. That's using the fire station as the sales pitch for everything else.
And the water fights deserve scrutiny. The city has spent years and millions in legal fees battling CalAm's desalination project — [insert documented City legal-cost figure and source before publishing] — and it has lost at nearly every turn: the state Supreme Court declined to hear the city's challenge in 2019, and in May 2025 the Monterey County Superior Court issued a final decision rejecting the attempt by Marina, MPWMD, and Marina Coast Water District to overturn the Coastal Commission's permits. Pouring more general-fund money into "water security" litigation is a proven way to spend millions and get nothing.
A phased plan delivers the fire station without a permanent, no-strings 7% tax. The city rejected this path — because the bundle, not the fire station, is the point.
Vote no, and tell the council: fire station first, funded honestly — not a blank check for the bundle.
The city says it needs revenue — but nothing in this measure requires the money to fund public safety. It is a general tax. If the council's priorities change next year, the money follows the council, not the ballot title. Marina pursued this tax after a facilities bond measure failed in 2024; city officials have publicly discussed using new revenue to fund city facilities.
If public safety truly needs dedicated funding, the city can put a special tax on the ballot with legally binding restrictions — and make its case to voters honestly.
7% of your combined electricity, gas, water, and telephone bills, every month. For a household paying $400/month across those utilities, that's roughly $28/month — about $336 a year — on top of the utility rate increases we already face. Businesses pay it too, and those costs get passed on in local prices.
Audits and disclosures are transparency, not restriction. They report where general-fund money went after it's spent. They give voters no legal power over where it goes. Any city's general fund is already subject to annual audits — this language adds the appearance of accountability without changing anything.
No. "Until ended by voters" means it is permanent unless residents fund and run a future campaign to repeal it. Most tax measures include a sunset date so voters can review whether the money was well spent. This one deliberately doesn't.
The measure promises reduced rates for low-income households, though qualifying thresholds and rates would be set later. Households above the qualifying line — including most working families, tradespeople, and fixed-income seniors just over the cutoff — pay the full 7%.
Yes — the Mercedes-Benz agreement is a matter of public record. In May 2025 the council approved sharing half of the city's 1% local sales tax with the dealership's owner, Unstoppable Automotive Group — expected to total about $5 million over seven years. Construction was required to begin by January 1, 2026; it didn't, and in April 2026 the council granted more time. Cities sometimes use tax-sharing to attract businesses — but voters deserve to weigh those choices against a new permanent tax on their own utility bills.
That's how it usually works. California cities routinely require developers of large projects to dedicate land — and often construct facilities — for fire stations, parks, and schools as a condition of approval, because new development creates the need for new services. Marina has negotiated development agreements at The Dunes, Sea Haven, and Marina Station since the 2000s. A city that made public safety its first priority would have secured a North Marina fire station site through those agreements long ago.
The City of Marina — alongside Marina Coast Water District and the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District — has spent years litigating against CalAm's desalination project, hiring outside attorneys to do it. The results speak for themselves: the state Supreme Court declined to hear the challenge in 2019, and in May 2025 the Monterey County Superior Court issued its final decision rejecting the agencies' attempt to overturn the Coastal Commission's 2022 permit approvals.
Whatever you think of the desal project, the legal strategy has consumed millions of public dollars and failed to stop it. A general tax hands the same City Hall more money for the same losing fights — because nothing in this measure prevents it.
Yes: phase it. Build the fire station first — securing the site through development agreements, as cities across California routinely do — and add facilities as the city's growing tax base delivers more revenue each year. The city's own projections anticipate revenue rising as The Dunes, Sea Haven, and Marina Station build out. A voter-approved special tax, with binding restrictions and a sunset date, is also available any time the city wants to make a legally enforceable public safety commitment.
The measure appears on the November 3, 2026 general election ballot for City of Marina voters. Ballots are mailed to all registered California voters. Check your registration and find drop-box and vote-center locations at the Monterey County Elections website (montereycountyelections.us).
City Hall found millions for car dealerships, hoteliers, and developers — and never built the fire station. Now they want the Peninsula's highest utility tax from you, permanently. Marina deserves better.
Vote No · November 3, 2026