By Tom Blodgett
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Despite legal threats and some resident opposition, Gilbert Town Council passed a series of tax increases Oct. 22 meant to help pay for a bevy of capital improvements in town. 

At the heart of the increases is a half-cent sales tax increase that will take Gilbert from the lowest rate in the Valley to the middle of the pack. A new 2% use tax and an increase on the bed tax from 2.8% to 5% also were included. 

Council voted 6-1 for the increases with Mayor Brigette Peterson dissenting. The new taxes will go into effect Jan. 1. 

The target is raising money to pay for $700 million in capital improvement projects for police, fire and parks and recreation the town deems as critical as it approaches build-out in the next five to seven years. 

“We are nearing the end of what has been a 100-year history up to this point of transitioning from a small agrarian town into a major suburban American city,” Town Manager Patrick Banger said. “And at that point we will switch our focus from these final few investments to maintain our quality of life to long-term maintenance of our infrastructure and management of those assets.” 

The projects 

While the council and staff have worked through that list of projects for nearly a year, staff presented to council one last review of the top projects before the vote. 

Assistant Police Chief Mike Angstead reminded council about finishing the Victims Advocacy Center that will break ground in January, as well as a crime lab for which Gilbert is talking with Chandler about a partnership, and expansion of the overcrowded Central and San Tan stations. 

Fire Chief Rob Duggan spoke of the fleet maintenance facility that is too small to accommodate all the work being done, forcing some of it to be done outdoors in the elements. Fire has even done heat-related calls on its own workers there.  

Duggan also said the town will rebuild one fire station and has plans to remodel four others. 

Parks and Recreation Director Robert Carmona said the parks system is popular but at maximum capacity now and reviewed the parks’ engagement efforts for its master plan, in which the town got more than 60,000 responses to what residents want from parks. That covered everything from lighted paths to multiuse trails to parks development across town and included the next phases of Gilbert Regional and Desert Sky parks. 

Opposition 

Gilbert previously pushed back on the conservative think tank Goldwater Institute, which characterized the taxes as illegal after the passage of Proposition 126 in 2017, violating Article 9, Section 25 of the Arizona Constitution, which prohibits state and local governments from enacting new taxes or increasing tax rates in effect on Dec. 31, 2017, on services performed in Arizona.   

The town then responded that the institute’s assertions were misleading on the law and in some cases misconstruing the tax increases on services. 

James Ashley of the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona spoke at the meeting making the same argument as Goldwater, asserting the construction tax included in the sales tax was a tax on a service. He reminded the council it comes on top of large increases in development fees the town charges homebuilders. 

Ashley was one of four speakers at the meeting opposing the taxes. Former Councilmember Victor Petersen was another, saying the town’s population growth and inflation do not justify the increase. 

“You're going to raise revenues, but your trajectory of expenditures does not map anywhere in a sustainable way,” he said. “It doesn't, and you're going to continue. You're going to adjust one time, you're going to feel some breathing room and it's going to be a few years and we're going to be back here again because our trajectory will not map with the economics. It will fall apart.  

“So I don't mean any insult, but it's an easy way out to do this tax increase. There's hard work that needs to be done and it's to live within your means. You can do it now, or we can figure it out later, but we're going to be back here again.” 

Additionally, the town received eight cards online or at the meeting from people expressing opposition and one supporting it. But an expected crowd in opposition never materialized. 

Council discussion 

At the dais, the discussion among council members was of this being a painful decision that had to be made given the community’s needs. 

The lone dissenting member, Peterson, agreed the community had needs, using the calls for service on employees at the fleet maintenance facility as an example of something that was a priority to address. 

“But there are just things that I don't see that we are telling the story, and the ducks aren’t lining up this year for me to be voting to increase our sales tax at this time,” she said. 

But she was alone in that viewpoint. 

Vice Mayor Scott Anderson, who is the mayor-elect, noted on the bed tax, hoteliers had opposed it when council reduced the tax several years ago because some of the revenue used goes to promote tourism. 

Councilmember Yung Koprowski said it was a difficult decision but one that was up to the council to make. 

“Gilbert residents expect an excellent quality of life,” she said. “We set a really high bar, but with growth comes challenges, and the projects shown I don't think are ones that we were willing to cut off the table, and that's why we're here on the dais making this decision today. I support the improvements presented.” 

Councilmember Chuck Bongiovanni asked people to think of a city they would not want to live in. 

“Think of one reason why, whether that be traffic, crime, schools,” he said. “Whatever your answer is, it comes down to quality of life. That's what it comes down to. I've heard people all this week talk to me about, ‘yeah, we understand police and fire, but this rec thing is stupid. Why are we spending money on this?’ And it comes down to quality of life.” 

Councilmember Bobbi Buchli noted the town has not raised taxes in eight years and was not sure how it has been getting by. 

“Our duty is to balance the budget, make policy, and make sure our infrastructure in the town is strong,” she said. “And we can't do that with the amount of money that we have.” 

Anderson encouraged people to look up what the town’s “City of the Future” initiative is if they were not familiar with it. 

“The purpose of the City of the Future initiative is to prevent exactly what is happening,” he said. “Unfortunately, what's happening and what's ironic about this is what's happening is town facilities are beginning to decay, and the rest of the town will follow suit if we don't keep up with the growth.” 

Councilmember Kathy Tilque said council already had done much work just whittling the projects to a priority list and now had to figure out how to pay for them. She hoped people didn’t think it was done in a “flippant moment.” 

“One thing that I'm proud of this council for is that we're not kicking that can down the road, waiting for somebody else to have to pick it up and figure out how to pay for these critical projects,” she said. 

Councilmember Jim Torgeson said the town would be working against its own interests if it had no use tax, thus encouraging people to shop online as opposed to at brick-and-mortar stores from which the town gets some revenue. 

On the sales tax, he said he was going against his own anti-tax ideology and prioritizing the needs of the community. He noted the state had taken from the town $9 million and growing in rental tax revenue and could very well take $20 million in food tax as well as no longer sharing some revenue with municipalities that it previously shared. 

But while the state is choking off municipal revenue, he remains anti-property tax and against paying by bonds. That brought him to either sales tax or cutting projects. 

“(Opponents have) never come up with a project to cut,” he said. “They've never come up with anything except fire this person, fire that person. Well, I can't do that individually. And B, what? A hundred thousand dollars out of a $2.3 billion budget is not going to put us over the edge. 

“People need to speak up and say, 'I will put up with fewer parks. ... It's a waste of money, and I don't care about potholes, and I don't care about the time that the fire department gets to me because we need to build something new to keep it under five minutes. I don't care if I get that or not. I don't want to spend a dime,' and if somebody's that narcissistic, I'm sorry, I can't support that.” 

We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.       

Tom Blodgett
Senior News Editor | Gilbert

tblodgett@iniusa.org

Meet Tom
Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.

Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.

Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism. 

Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.  

Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).