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Press release

This story is part of the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service, a partnership with Chapman University that trains student journalists to cover public policy across Orange County. Have a student project or a response to this work? Email admin@voiceofoc.org.

The biggest decisions on the ballot for many Orange County voters this year isn’t just who their elected leaders will be – there’s also a host of local ballot initiatives aimed at causes such as increasing local taxes, rewriting housing plans or changing the way residents vote. 

Altogether, there are 13 city ballot initiatives voters across the county will have to vote on this year, over half of which are aimed at new taxes to help float a growing number of structurally imbalanced city budgets throughout the county. 

[Read: How Rocky Are Orange County’s Municipal Budgets?[]

The cities of Orange, Santa Ana and San Clemente are all asking their voters to approve or reapprove sales tax boosts for various purposes. 

Orange leaders want residents to approve a 1% sales tax increase they say will bring in over $37 million a year, with hopes it can help patch their growing budget deficits in their general fund. 

[Read: Orange Officials Place 1% Sales Tax Measure on November Ballot After Indecision]

It’s the city’s second attempt to get a tax approved after a previous effort in 2024 to get a 0.5% sales tax approved failed, forcing council members to pull money out of a series of infrastructure projects to help balance the budget and cut a series of vacant job positions. 

City council members are also asking voters switch Orange from a general law city to a charter city, which they say could help them rein in the municipal budget deficit and grant greater local control. 

[Read: Orange Turns to Voters on Charter City Proposal]

Voters in San Clemente are also being asked to increase their sales tax by 1%, but for a different purpose – saving their shrinking coast. 

Estimates say the shift would generate around $15 million a year that would be put toward acquiring sand and other measures to save the city’s rapidly shrinking beaches, a problem city leaders are regularly grappling with. 

[Read: San Clemente Residents to Vote on Another Sales Tax for Sand]

Meanwhile in Santa Ana, city council members are asking voters to make the 1.5% sales tax increase they approved in 2018 permanent. 

City leaders are already struggling with balancing the municipal budget, cutting out millions of dollars in spending this year alone to balance out the books, with multiple city leaders predicting a financial armageddon should the tax lapse.  

[Read: Santa Ana Voters to Decide on Keeping Sales Tax Increase Indefinitely]

Orange leaders are also asking voters to bump their transient occupancy tax, a special fee on hotel rooms in town, alongside the cities of Westminster, Placentia and Los Alamitos.  

Placentia and Orange’s hotel bed taxes would increase from 10% to 14% if approved by the voters. 

While Placentia is in better financial shape than Orange, the city is still grappling with budget problems, forcing them to lay off two staffers earlier this year.  

[Read: Placentia Mulls Over Increasing a Host of Taxes]

Westminster and Los Alamitos hotel taxes would be bumped from 8% to 12% if voters sign off on the measures.  

Laguna Beach leaders are asking voters to implement term limits requiring city council members to wait at least two years after serving two terms before they can run for office again. 

[Read: Voters to Decide on Laguna Beach City Council Term Limits in 2026]

At the same time, Lake Forest leaders are asking voters to overturn their existing two-term limits, instead implementing a four-year cool off period after city council members serve two terms back to back. 

That would remove the city’s existing ceiling of two terms for life. 

[Read: Lake Forest Voters Could Consider Overhauling City Council Term Limits]

Irvine voters will be looking to move to an entirely new model of voting dubbed ranked choice voting, which lets voters rank the candidates in order of preference instead of just selecting a single candidate. 

If approved by the voters, it could be implemented as soon as the 2028 elections. 

[Read: Irvine Asks Voters to Change Election System While Budget Deficit Looms]

While Newport Beach voters were on track to vote for as many as four ballot initiatives this November, there’s only one that qualified in time. 

The Responsible Housing Initiative, which was financially backed by one of the city’s major developers, aims to limit the total amount of housing that can be built in the city moving forward. 

It remains unclear when the other three initiatives, which are aimed at a series of transparency improvements, term limits and shifting the city to district elections, could be voted on this November after the OC Registrar of Voters said they were approved too late for 2026. 

[Read: OC Election’s Chief Rejects Newport Beach Initiatives Ordered by Judge]

Costa Mesa leaders are looking to change how the city charges businesses for their licenses, making it so that larger businesses have to pay more to the city based on their gross income, according to the city’s website.

The move could generate over $4.6 million for city coffers according to that report, with proponents noting the cost to operate a business in town has not increased since 1985.

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.