Staff Reports | Digital Free Press
Officials at City Hall report Scottsdale City Council meets today at 2 p.m. to discuss Monday’s Court of Appeals ruling regarding Prop. 490, a 0.15% city sales tax rate ballot measure.
In a reversal of a lower court, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that Scottsdale’s ballot measure could not proceed as written.
The City Council will meet for discussion and possible action on the matter. Part of that discussion may occur in executive session, but any action would occur in an open public meeting, officials tell the Digital Free Press.
The Goldwater Institute lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of former Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane and residents Susan Wood and Yvonne Cahill, began earlier this summer with the most recent legal opinion stemming from a July 22 appeal. Read the ruling for yourself HERE.
In little over a year, the sales tax in question — originally meant to fund land purchases and the creation of new trailheads within the McDowell Sonoran Preserve — will sunset within municipal bounds, but city leaders have come to terms on a November ballot question asking voters to replace the expiring sales tax with a .15% sales tax to be installed for the next 30 years.
In 1995 and in 2004, Scottsdale voters approved a 0.20% tax — the 0.20% preserve tax today in question — to fund land acquisition only and a 0.15% tax to fund land acquisition and improvements in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. Revenues from the 0.20% preserve tax and the 0.15% land and improvement tax were used to acquire over 30,000 acres of land now knows as the McDowell Sonoran Preserve that entailed constructing 12 trailheads and 235 miles of trails in the preserve.
Today, the McDowell Sonoran Preserve is a beloved amenity known the world over as the single largest municipal land preserve in the United States, officials at City Hall say.
