Tonight: Portola Valley council considers fate of utility users tax

Why does our PG&E bill always show a rate of 6.5%? Does this story have the numbers right?

This tax was put on us years ago when the county told PV that it was not going to get as much in,property taxes as before.Then a couple of years later the county said it had made a "mistake" and reinstated the previous amount. But the utility tax DID NOT GO AWAY, as many thought it should have!
It's time to abolish it now, or drastically reduce it. It amounts to quite a lot in the winter months.

Time to let it go. Many of us will be facing a new tax picture with the new tax laws and don't need this in addition. The School Board will have its hand out for additional, nondeductiable , taxes later this year as well.

Of course, there is no such thing as a temporary tax. Government will always make it difficult to get rid of them.

Yes, time to get rid of this tax. We are so over taxed in this town, which is the real reason so many of the town’s long time residents are leaving. Affordable housing starts with affordable taxes.

@Elaine you're correct: the total rate is 6.5%, I think there's an error/confusion in the first paragraph. The tax is split into two chunks: 2% which goes to the open-space fund, and 4.5% which goes to the general fund. The 4.5% portion is actually a "temporary" reduction from 5.5% as mentioned, which reduction will expire in July if we do nothing. Last night, we agreed to put a measure on the ballot (hopefully in June) to permanently reduce it from 5.5% to 4.5%; the 2% for open space will be unchanged.

The corrections suggested for this story are accurate.

Before coming to work on Wednesday and writing this story, I had had a health scare that apparently affected my concentration and allowed me to bollix the math and the election date. Very sorry for the confusion.