Measure K fails, leaders look ahead to another tax measure

Measure K, Salinas' 1-cent sales tax to hire more police, failed at the polls yesterday, garnering less than 40 percent of the vote. Salinas Police Chief Louis Fetherolf is already thinking about round two.

Fetherolf took over the department in April and is trying to spearhead community-oriented policing, but he says he doesn’t have enough officers to connect with residents outside of a crime scene. 

Nobody disagrees that the city needs a bigger police department, Fetherolf says, but people took issue with the measure’s lack of a sunset clause and funding restraints. “I think we’ll take another run at it,” Fetherolf says.

Mayor Dennis Donohue agrees that the general tax measure wasn’t the right formula. Donohue adds that it was a short time frame to sell the measure to voters after the City Council put it on the ballot in July.

With K’s demise, the council will have to make $8.5 million in budget cuts for next fiscal year, says Finance Director Tom Kever. This could include closing Sherwood Hall and four recreation centers, eliminating the fire department’s paramedic program and laying off 11 firefighters and seven civilian police officers. In all, 61 positions are on the chopping block.

Read more in Thursday's Weekly.