SB Council: We Won't Tax Riverside

The City Council emerged from closed session Monday and voted not to extend the San Bernardino's utility-users tax to Riverside-owned facilities in the city limits.

San Bernardino officials were traveling on a road to ask San Bernardino's voters to approve a plan to extend the tax to Riverside, which has wells inside San Bernardino's boundaries. But City Attorney James F. Penman said the council changed course Monday, when 5th Ward Councilman Chas Kelley introduced a motion to keep the tax off the ballot.

Reached by telephone late Monday, Kelley said he would defer to assistant city manager Lori Sassoon to explain why officials soured on the tax idea.

Monday's decision appears to prevent what could have been a heated campaign between San Bernardino and Riverside officials. This reporter isn't immediately knowledgeable of any case where a city taxes another city.

Considering Chief Justice John Marshall's famed remarks on the power to tax being the power to destroy (McCulloch v. Maryland), it could have been interesting to see what kinds of arguments would have been advanced by each side.