State Ballot Petition

Diane Downend, diane@edenbridgehomes.com

Local Control Of Local Classrooms Funding Act - State Parcel Tax Threshold

Senator Simitian has been trying for the last 10 years to get legislators to agree to lower the state parcel tax approval threshold from 2/3s to 55% of voters. While he is continuing his efforts to do this and plans to put it up for a vote before the legislature by summer's end, he is also supportive of putting a similar proposal on the ballot this November to give voters an opportunity to vote on it.

If 1 million signatures are gathered in this drive, November's state ballot will allow people to vote yes or no on whether school parcel tax elections for $250 or less can pass with a 55% yes vote instead of 2/3rds for parcel tax measures that are supported by at least 2/3 of the district's school board members.

Since 1983, 54% percent of parcel tax proposals passed; if the treshold had been 55% instead of 2/3rds, 96% would have passed.
Following is information regarding access to the petition. You are encouraged to print out the petition, take it to your friends, neighbors and colleagues for signatures, and mail the petition with signatures to the address below by May 1, 2010.

General Information:
Flyer: https://www. improvedschoolfunding.com/assets/briefing. pdf
Website: www.improvedschoolfunding.com

Gatherer Instructions:
To be an official signature gatherer, you must be eligible to vote or registered to vote in CA.
See https://www. improvedschoolfunding.com/news.aspx generally and https://www. improvedschoolfunding.com/sign.aspx ("How Should I Approach People to Sign?") for suggestions on what to say.

Petition:
Download
- Go to https://www. improvedschoolfunding.com/sign.aspx
- Click on the number of signatures you think you can gather and click on "next"
- Read through this page, click the box on the bottom and click "finish"
- Click on "Click here to download the signature package as a PDF"
- Enter Santa Clara County on 1st Page of pdf

Signers:
- Only California registered voters from Santa Clara County can sign (separate petitions are needed for separate counties)
- When you pass around the petition, present the ballot language with it
- People need to sign in order (i.e. don't hand out blank pages for signatures) (if you need more pages, you'll need to print out an entire new package)

When you've collected all the signatures:
- Fill out the Declaration of Circulator page
- For each petition set, mail the Declaration, 3 pages of the petition following it, and all signature pages to Californians for Improved School Funding, 751 Laurel Street #219, San Carlos, CA 94070-3113

Dates:
You can start now, but it needs to be in the mail no later than May 1, 2010

Where and How:
According to the State PTA, PTA units do not need to vote on this since the California State PTA has taken a position supporting it. You can gather signatures at school sites at authorized PTA meetings or events held on school grounds, as long as PAUSD funds are not otherwise used to support the signature gathering. You should not collect signatures on school grounds in any other manner. You may also collect signatures off campus (ie, your friends, neighbors and colleagues).