Voters reject an Oakland tax measure for the first time in 15 years

OAKLAND — Oakland voters have rejected a proposed tax that was expected to generate $34 million in new yearly revenue, ending a nearly 15-year streak of the city’s voters approving any tax measure put before them.

Measure E, a parcel tax that would have added $192 to a single-family homeowner’s annual taxes, had received only 44% voter approval in the latest election results released Friday. The ballot item was over 6,000 votes short of the majority required to pass.

Alameda County election officials have now tallied over 244,000 votes, and though several thousand remain to be counted — including ballots mailed on election night that have not yet arrived — it is unlikely that Measure E can catch up.

It is a stunning rebuke by voters of Oakland’s political establishment, which relied on a familiar playbook in seeking to funnel the new revenue into the city’s general purpose fund, which pays for worker salaries and day-to-day operations.

The last time city leaders failed to secure approval for a tax on the ballot was in November 2011, during the mayoral administration of Jean Quan.

Mayor Barbara Lee had campaigned robustly for Measure E, promising the revenue would help budget nearly two dozen additional police officer positions and replace outdated fire engines, among other causes.

But a well-heeled opposition campaign ran online and televised advertisements questioning city leaders’ ability to live up to their promises.

City leaders had stoked anger in some political circles when they tapped revenue from Measure NN, a parcel tax approved by 70% of voters in 2024 that requires Oakland to budget 700 police officers. The city currently budgets only 678 officers, and just over 600 of those full-time positions are filled.

“We just thought this (new) tax was ridiculous,” said Gagan Biyani, whose political advocacy group Empower Oakland spent tens of thousands of dollars opposing Measure E. “The city just passed Measure NN two years ago. It’s so disingenuous.”

What makes Measure E’s failure especially painful for city officials is that it required only a majority vote to pass, far lower than the ordinary two-thirds threshold.

The city’s largest public labor unions had bankrolled petition-gathering efforts that qualified the measure for the June ballot — allowing it to need fewer votes than if the Oakland City Council had voted to place it there.

The council had already budgeted for the additional revenue last year, leading Lee to establish a contingency budget proposal in the event that the measure failed. The council is expected to vote on Lee’s new budget plan in the coming weeks.

To some, the outcome might be seen as a referendum on Lee’s shortened tenure in office — a period of relative peace in Oakland following the economic hardships, rise in crime and political turmoil in the years immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Loren Taylor, the candidate who lost to the mayor in a special election last year, shrugged off the notion that Lee should be held to account for Measure E’s failure.

“We can’t confuse the lack of trust that has built over time with a verdict on one person who’s in office,” said Taylor, who added of his potential mayoral candidacy this year: “I’m not thinking about the November election.”

Lee, meanwhile, has strongly intimated that she will seek re-election in November to a full term in office. Representatives for the mayor did not immediately provide comment on Measure E’s loss.

Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at [email protected].