Voters would have to approve such income tax. Considering they would be the ones affected, the proposition is unlikely to pass.<p>I doubt it&#x27;s the income situation though, from the article:<p>&quot;Visit the main street of Palo Alto, where Stanford and numerous startups are located, and you’ll see dozens of fancy restaurants and stores and may not be able to snag a parking spot among the luxury cars parked there. Castro Street in downtown Mountain View has a slightly more relaxed vibe, with candy stores and book shops and restaurants and bars.&quot;<p>Palo Alto and Mountain View don&#x27;t collect any income taxes and are subject to the same Prop 13 restrictions as every other city in California.<p>For San Jose troubles, you&#x27;d have to look towards its pension obligations. For a while the pension system for municipal workers allowed the pension to be pro-rated to the last salary mark, not average salary over the years of service.<p>That does not seem so bad, but the union contracts had a fairly generous allowance for sick days. That does not sound so bad either (who wants to deal with a sick coworker?) but it also allowed unlimited accumulation of those sick days throughout the years of service. At retirement the accumulated sick hours would be paid out pro-rated at last salary mark.<p>You can see what incentives this provided for city workers (of a fairly large city): never take a sick day, accumulate the maximum amount of them, push for promotions as you&#x27;re closer to retirement age, retire the week after you get promotion and salary bump.<p>Many did play the system that way <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mercurynews.com&#x2F;ci_21438816&#x2F;bay-areas-250k-club-government-retirees-wont-be" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mercurynews.com&#x2F;ci_21438816&#x2F;bay-areas-250k-club-g...</a> and considering it&#x27;s a major city San Jose has a lot of former employees that it owns six-figure pensions until the rest of their lives.