Hector Marin, a two-time candidate for Santa Cruz City Council, said Thursday he is appealing a judge’s dismissal of his lawsuit over language on the November ballot describing Santa Cruz’s proposed sugary drink tax and how the revenue from it would be used.

On Aug. 15, Superior Court Judge Syda Cogliati rejected Marin’s attempt to force changes to the ballot initiative’s language that he said would clarify that revenue from the tax could be spent on any city expenditure. In her ruling, Cogliati said Marin, who is represented by attorneys Chris Skinnell and David Lazarus of the Bay Area firm Nielsen Merksamer, failed to prove that the ballot’s language was misleading, false or partisan.

Speaking to Lookout on Thursday, Marin called the decision “regrettable” and said he and his lawyers had filed an appeal.

On June 25, the Santa Cruz City Council voted to put a referendum to voters in November on whether the city should impose a 2-cent-per-ounce local excise tax on wholesale sales of sugar-sweetened beverages. Although he said he opposed the proposed tax, Marin’s complaint did not object to whether the measure should go to voters, but rather how the city worded it.

Marin argued that listing the ways the city could spend the money would mislead voters into believing that’s exactly how the city would spend the funds. In reality, the tax is a general use tax, as noted near the end of the ballot text. It can be used for any general expenditure, from staff salaries and office equipment to park maintenance and infrastructure.

As presented, the November ballot question will read: “In order to maintain essential city services, such as improving/maintaining parks/beaches/open space, providing safe routes to school, expanding community recreation/youth/senior programs, reducing crime/public safety, improving safety for cyclists and pedestrians, and helping to combat diabetes, heart disease, and childhood obesity, shall the City of Santa Cruz’s measure to impose a two-cent per ounce general state use levy on the wholesale sale of sugar-sweetened beverages (e.g., sodas, energy drinks), which generate $1,300,000 annually, be adopted until voters repeal this measure?”

In an Instagram post on August 18, Marin commented: “The sugar tax is a regressive tax that shifts the burden of costs onto the working class. I am against regressive taxation, but most of all I am against lack of transparency and bias in city initiatives.”

Reached by phone Thursday, Lazarus, Marin’s attorney, said he was “not authorized to speak to the press” and would not answer whether they had formally filed an appeal. Marin said they filed it last week, but there were no updates on the case on the Santa Cruz County Superior Court website. Santa Cruz County Clerk Tricia Webber said her team expects to start printing ballots for the November election by Sept. 6.

The city’s effort to pass a sugary drink tax has seen a resurgence: The city had proposed a similar 1-cent tax in 2018, but the ballot initiative was halted by Gov. Jerry Brown’s Keep Groceries Affordable Act, which prevented local authorities from imposing new taxes on supermarket groceries. In May 2023, Councilwoman Martine Watkins, who has led the city’s efforts to pass a sugary drink tax, was part of a successful lawsuit against the state that lifted the restriction on local authorities’ ability to tax such items.

According to a June city council report, the city council subsequently formed an ad hoc sugar-sweetened beverage committee to study the feasibility of putting the tax on the ballot in March or November 2024.

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