Overview
- City leaders placed Measure E on the June ballot to impose a parcel tax that would charge about $192 a year for single-family homes and $131 per multifamily unit to raise an estimated $34 million annually.
- Mayor Barbara Lee released a $2.27 billion midcycle budget and said the revenue is needed to avoid closing roughly 190 shelter beds, shuttering fire stations, delaying fire-equipment upgrades, and other service reductions.
- If approved, the measure would let the city maintain current service levels, restore some shelter capacity, increase budgeted police posts toward 700 from 678, and add staff to tackle illegal dumping and encampments.
- The tax was placed on the ballot through a citizens initiative backed by a union-funded PAC that has spent six figures, a move critics say lowered the approval threshold to a simple majority and reduces voter protections.
- Opponents including former councilmember Loren Taylor and real-estate groups argue Measure E is regressive, lacks binding spending guarantees, and skirts deeper structural problems such as rising pension costs and a stalled Coliseum sale that have strained Oakland’s budget.