Despite surplus, city is considering new taxes

BY EMILY MIBACH
Daily Post Staff Writer

Menlo Park officials are talking about putting a tax on the 2024 ballot even though the city generated a $28 million surplus last year.

Officials argue that there are limitations on how council can spend the $28 million, so it’s possible the city’s ledger could go into the red.

Assistant City Manager Stephen Stolte asked council members on Tuesday (June 13) if they wanted his team to look into any of the following taxes:

• An increase in the city’s current 12% hotel tax to 13% or as high as 15.5%, like Palo Alto;

• A new Utility User’s Tax, after the city’s previous tax was found illegal by a judge in May;

• A sales tax increase;

• A business license tax.

New utility and sales taxes were quickly shot down by the council. All council members cited the poor economy as a reason not to proceed with either of those taxes.

Most of the council seemed interested in looking into increasing the city’s hotel tax. Councilwoman Maria Doerr pointed out that Palo Alto’s tax is 15.5%. She said while Menlo Park doesn’t need to go that high, Palo Alto’s tax gives the city room to increase its tax.

Councilman Drew Combs was a bit leery of increasing the hotel tax. He said it is easy to increase a tax on people who don’t live in town or vote. But he asked whether taxes should be raised in general.

As for the business tax, both Doerr and Councilwoman Betsy Nash expressed a slight interest in the idea, but said they want to make sure that tax would not impact small businesses. Nash said the only way she’d be interested in a business license tax would be if it were imposed on larger employers, but even then she’d “really want to think about it.”