County should try again.

Byline: The Register-Guard

In the wake of Tuesday's narrow defeat of Lane County's proposed income tax, county commissioners should move with cautious deliberation to put a revised public safety measure on the May ballot.

County officials were no doubt deeply disappointed by the defeat after an all-out campaign, including an unprecedented advertising blitz, in the final weeks before the election. But they should also be heartened by the closeness of the vote. Measure 20-114 lost by just 2 percent of the nearly 120,000 votes cast.

Granted, a 2 percent loss has the same effect on the county's public safety problems as a 20 percent drubbing. But the close vote suggests that the county may finally be within reach of success after a decade of defeats of public safety measures.

Commissioners must first address the concerns expressed by voters during the last campaign before putting another measure on the ballot. They include: the exemption of public sector retirement benefits from the proposed income tax; the potential for property-rich county residents and companies to receive large property tax credits that offset most or all of their income tax liabilities; and ballot wording that many voters felt was misleading because it failed to clearly indicate that a yes vote would result in an income tax.

Addressing these and other concerns will be a challenging task, but not an impossible one. For example, commissioners can resolve the pension issue by exempting both public and private sector pensions. Another solution might be to convince the state Legislature to repeal the state's ban on counties taxing the benefits of Public Employees Retirement System and other public sector pensions. (The latter alternative would have the benefit of requiring all retirees to contribute to the support of broad-based public safety services while also lowering the income tax rate.)

As for the issue of unfair property tax credits, the county could eliminate the credits altogether, a move that would enable it to dramatically reduce the rate of the proposed income tax. Or it could impose a cap on the amount of credits that individuals and businesses could re- ceive.

Meanwhile, the issue of the measure's wording could be resolved by simply and directly asking voters whether they want to enact an income tax that would be capped under the county charter and whose revenues can be used only to pay for public safety services.

Before the county puts another public safety measure on the ballot, officials ought to do some post-election polling to see if there are other voter concerns that should be addressed. Even though West Lane Commissioner-elect Bill Fleenor does not take office until next year, the commissioners should involve him in discussions in hopes that a new proposal might have the unanimous support of both the current and incoming county boards.

As for timing, the May election would allow enough time for the board to do its homework and make the adjustments necessary to win voter approval. It's also soon enough to capitalize on the momentum created by the county's recent extensive efforts to educate voters on the dire condition of the county's criminal justice system.

Even with improvements, the county's public safety proposal would face a steep and difficult road to victory. The next county measure will require an even more intensive countywide campaign to have a chance of doing what the county's last 12 public safety measures have failed to do: Succeed.