Petition to limit property tax advances

Sun Capital Bureau

Tuesday, July 22, 2008 | 2:19 p.m.

CARSON CITY – A petition to further limit increases in Nevada’s property tax has taken another step toward the November election ballot.

The Secretary of State’s office said today that the group led by former Reno Assemblywoman Sharron Angle has collected 83,600 signatures that is in excess of the required 58,628.

Matt Griffin, deputy secretary of state in charge of elections, says he is ordering the counties to verify the signatures. Each county must conduct a random sample to determine if 5 percent or 500 of the people who signed the petition, whichever is greater, are registered voters.

Angle, who is campaigning to unseat Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio in the Republican primary election, said she was “guardedly optimistic” that the required signatures would be verified.

Angle said she collected many of the signatures herself and made a special effort to make sure those who signed were registered voters and were living at the address they put on the petition.

“I’m confident what we turned in will be verified,” she said.

Former Sparks Assemblyman Don Gustavson, also a leader in the We The People Nevada organization pushing the measure, said a person signing the petition was asked three to four times if he or she was a registered voter.

Gustavson is campaigning to unseat Assemblyman John Marvel, the senior member of the Assembly in the GOP primary election.

Program Officer Kristi Geiser in the Secretary of State’s office said the counties have until Aug. 4 to complete the verification process.

If the petition passes the test, it will go on the ballot this coming election and again in 2010. The petition would limit property taxes to 1 percent of the base value of the property. The base value would be pegged to fiscal 2003-2004. When the property is sold, the base value may increase annually only by 2 percent or inflation, whichever is smaller.

Nevada law presently limits property taxes to increases of 3 percent a year.

This was the second victory this month for the Angle-Gustavson group. The Nevada Supreme Court on July 16 ruled that the counties should accept signatures gathered on the petition up until June 17, rather than May 20th. There was a conflict in the law and Clark County refused to accept the names of those who signed after May 20. But the Supreme Court ruled that the names gathered and submitted up until June 17 should be counted.

The petition has drawn the opposition of the Nevada AFL-CIO and the Nevada State Education Association.