Los Altos Continues Charter City Pursuit and Revenue Measures

At the January 14 City Council meeting, Los Altos officials continued a discussion on whether or not to become a charter city. Currently, Los Altos is a general law city, which generally means all of its authority and procedures are determined by state law. However, by becoming a charter city Los Altans would have the opportunity to draft their own city charter which would provide much greater autonomy on how the city is run.

Driving the push for charter city status is a city council that is frustrated by recent legal claims that it is violating the Voting Rights Act. This is essentially a legal threat pushing Los Altos to adopt district-based city council elections where each district represents the demographics of Los Altos fairly. Los Altos will make that transition for 2026, but if the city can adopt charter city rules it may be able to adopt another system of elections that satisfies the Voting Rights Act, such as ranked choice voting.

Additionally, city officials are considering revenue measures to support the construction of a new police station and to fund other city infrastructure improvements. They are keeping their options open and will consider a general tax, which could be a sales or a parcel tax that would only need 50%+1 to be approved by voters. However, if they move to a charter city, they will consider a transfer tax. It is unclear if the city can put the transfer tax on the ballot the same time as the city charter (it likely could be written into the charter), but in essence Los Altos is keeping all options open as it pursues revenue measures.

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Source: Los Altos Town Crier

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