From the Secretary of State and the Richmond City Clerk. Graphic by Daria Oyundary Tsagaann.

My position to support Measure T has already cost me endorsements, particularly from the business community, real estate and landlord community and their financial support during this race,” said Maria Viramontes, the Richmond vice mayor who is up for reelection, in an email. “It has created some stress with friends since my husband and I have strong ties in the business community.”

In July six of the nine council members, including Viramontes, approved the measure for the ballot this November. Measure T would change the business tax license code by adding an additional manufacturing tax and changing the way landlords are taxed. City officials say Measure T would raise $8.5 million in general fund money, to be spent on public safety, road maintenance and the city’s libraries.

Measure T opponents say there’s no similar manufacturing tax code in California, but, since there is no central compilation of business tax codes for California, “Comparisons are difficult,” said Michael Coleman, fiscal policy advisor for the League of California Cities, in an email. “I can say that this particular approach (the manufacturers tax in Measure T) is unique in my experience. I don’t know of another city that has similar provisions in its business license tax ordinance. However, most cities don’t have similar manufacturing industry as Richmond ⎯ and I have not actually researched other cities in this regard.”

Recently, three members of the City Council and two candidates held a press conference at the Bayview Branch Library, which has been closed since April of 2004 because of budget cuts, to debunk what they called misinformation about Measure T.

“We’re here to send a clear message that Measure T is good for Richmond families and business,” said Gayle McLaughlin, a City Council member who is running for mayor. McLaughlin was flanked by supporters holding signs that said, “Yes on T. T Taxes Chevron, not you.”

McLaughlin is one of the targets of an anti-Measure T campaign funded largely by Chevron. According to the most recent campaign filings at the City Clerk’s office, the Coalition to Save Jobs has spent $62,000 opposing McLaughlin’s candidacy in the form of fliers. The Coalition to Save Jobs received more than 60 percent of its funding from Chevron-supported PACs.

“There’s too much oil influence in our city government. I think the people of Richmond are ready for government of the people,” said McLaughlin, when asked about the money being spent opposing her. “We have the power of people. Our opponents have the power of money.”

City officials say $8 million of the projected Measure T funds would be generated by Chevron’s oil refinery and the additional half million would come from landlords. Chevron currently pays about $30 million in taxes to the city, roughly one-third of the city’s general fund budget.

Under the current business tax model, businesses pay an annual flat rate of $268.50 for a business license, plus $53.50 per employee. The council members who proposed T say this hits small business owners too hard, so they created a “manufacturing class” under the business tax code. Under Measure T, companies qualifying as “manufacturers” would pay the new $282.70 flat rate like every other business, and, either $56.65 for each employee or 0.125 percent of the raw materials used in manufacturing during the prior year, whichever is higher.

According to the city attorney’s analysis, a manufacturing business with 50 employees would have to use “more than $2.1 million in raw materials before its tax would be increased over the general rate.”

Under Measure T, manufacturing is defined as the “activity of converting or conditioning tangible personal property by changing the form, composition, or quality of character of some existing material or materials, including natural resources, by procedures commonly regarded by the average person as manufacturing, compounding, processing or assembling, into a material or materials with a different form or use.”

There is also a special definition for oil refineries: “Manufacturing includes any process of refining or processing hydrocarbons, petroleum or crude oil to produce products for use as fuels, lubricants, solvents, plastics, or other intermediate or final products.”

Under Measure T, city officials would collect tax from the total amount of crude oil used during the one-year period of the business license. The value of crude would be based on the average daily spot price of light, sweet crude oil traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Chevron would then have to pay 0.125 percent of the cost of all the crude oil it refined during that one-year period. City officials estimate this to be about $8 million a year.

According to Viramontes, there are a handful of other manufacturing companies, besides Chevron, like General Chemical, that would be taxed over the general rate. But, she said, because the raw materials used before manufacturing for companies like General Chemical are inexpensive compared to an oil refinery, the tax revenue from those companies will not be as significant as Chevron’s.

While supporters say the measure recognizes the largest manufacturers and asks them to pay their fair share, opponents worry that Measure T will make Richmond an unattractive place to businesses. Furthermore, they say, the city has no plan for the new revenue.

“The Chamber wants it to be easier to do business with the city,” said John Ziesenhenne, chair of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce board and member of RichPAC, the chamber’s political action committee. “The business community is certainly concerned with increased taxes when there has not been legitimate reason to show why there is a need.”

The Chamber of Commerce does not officially endorse candidates, but it does take a stance on ballot measures. And in the case of Measure T, the chamber has come out swinging.

“Why give money to a city council who just got out of a $35 million deficit?” asked Judy Morgan, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce.

RichPAC endorsed incumbent Irma Anderson for mayor, and newcomer Ludmyrna "Myrna" Lopez for city council. Both have said they oppose Measure T. The Contra Costa Taxpayer’s Association, to whom who Chevron directed requests for comment, is equally frustrated by Measure T.

“This is the kind of tax that when you put it on business it hurts everybody in the city,” said Kris Hunt, a member of the Contra Costa Taxpayer’s Association board of directors. “We’re very concerned about tax on the manufacturer’s raw materials—and, that this is in an illegal tax, and the city’s going to end up in the courts.”

Council member Viramontes fully expects that Chevron will sue the city, should Measure T pass. “Yes, that would not surprise me,” she said. But the City Council members who support Measure T say they are on solid legal ground and expect to prevail in court.

And as for not having a plan for the money ⎯ that’s by design, they say, because of state-mandated restrictions on the rules for imposing local taxes. “If we made a reference to how the money was going to be spent,” said City Council member Nathanial Bates, “then you’re looking at a two-thirds majority instead of a fifty percent [vote to pass measure T].” With only a simple majority needed, City Council members say Measure T is more likely to pass.

“Considering all we have gone through in Richmond,” said Viramontes. “I consider Measure T the right choice for now.”

Brett Wilkison contributed to this story.