Backed by survey results and residents’ support, the Oceanside City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to place a 10-year extension of Measure X, a half-cent sales tax, on the November ballot. People at the meeting praised the way the money has been spent so far. The city built a new downtown fire station that opens this summer and a firefighter training tower shared with departments throughout the region, expanded the Police Department’s homeless outreach teams, improved beachfront facilities such as restrooms, repaired hundreds of miles of streets and more. Oceanside voters approved the tax in 2018. It took effect April 1, 2019, and since then it has generated between $13 million and $18 million annually. Unless extended, it will expire in April 2026. Former Oceanside City Councilmember Colleen O’Hara, who chairs the Measure X Citizens Oversight Committee, spoke in favor of the extension. The committee oversees all Measure X expenditures. “Without exception, every project that we have reviewed has met with the wishes of the voters of this city,” O’Hara said. “Measure X has been a story of caring for your own community.” Charles Bowen, chair of the communications committee for Save Oceanside Sand, thanked city officials for including beach and habitat restoration in the proposed extension. “Oceanside voters strongly support beach and habitat restoration to ensure a usable beach and shoreline resilience for this and future generations,” Bowen said. Support for the tax extension was not universal. Former firefighter Richard Newton, a 34-year Oceanside resident, explained why he opposes it. “Life was fine and safe before Measure X was passed,” Newton said. “Any increase in taxes increases government bureaucracy, which burdens citizens not only through increased taxes but through loss of freedoms as well,” he said. “The threat of public safety cuts is used by bureaucrats to scare taxpayers into paying yet more taxes.” Councilmember Rick Robinson, who was Oceanside’s fire chief for six years before his election to the City Council, said some Measure X improvements are things most people never see, such as better equipment for firefighters. “When I came here (from Orange County) these individuals were working in buildings that were falling down around them,” Robinson said. “Their fire apparatus, we never knew when it was going to break down or be in the shop,” he said. “There was equipment we didn’t have, and because of their efforts you didn’t notice it. They still showed up at fires, they still showed up at your medical aids, but their quality of life, their work-life balance wasn’t good.” Money from Measure X means firefighters are better equipped and work less overtime, and it prevents them from going to other departments for better pay and working conditions, Robinson said. A recent survey of 582 Oceanside residents likely to vote in November by the firm True North Research showed 67 percent to 73 percent said they would support an extension, with a margin of error at plus or minus 4.1 percent. The extension needs 50 percent of the vote plus one to pass. “They see the wisdom of maintaining this revenue source,” said Jared Boigon of Team CivX, a consulting agency working with the city on the extension. “These are very strong numbers, numbers that other cities in the county would be very jealous of and would like to have themselves.” Most cities in San Diego County have a sales tax rate of 7.75 percent. That includes the state sales tax rate of 7.25 percent, and the half-cent regional sales tax known as Transnet approved by county voters to pay for transportation projects. With the additional half-cent, Oceanside’s total sales tax is 8.25 percent, the same as Vista, where voters approved a half-cent municipal tax in 2006. In Del Mar, the county’s smallest city, voters approved a 1 percent increase in 2016 to make the total 8.75 percent. Elsewhere in Southern California, sales tax tops out in Long Beach and Santa Monica, both with 10.25 percent.