Vista voters have quite a bill piled up on their Nov. 7 ballot. The city is asking to raise sales taxes by half a cent, Tri-City Medical Center wants to raise property taxes by $23.40 per $100,000 of assessed value, and Palomar College is seeking a $14.72 property tax increase per $100,000 of assessed value.

Of the three, we'd put the sales tax, Proposition L, at the bottom of the priority list, but Vista voters should still consider marking the circle next to "yes" on their ballot.

The strongest reason to support Prop. L is that it will help pay for added public safety coverage in the city. Currently, Vista firefighters and paramedics are meeting a state-mandated goal of reaching the scene of emergencies within six minutes about half the time.

They should be getting there that quickly 90 percent of the time, and lagging behind presents a real danger to Vista residents calling 911 when they have a heart attack or when their house catches on fire. It's distressing that response times in the city have dropped to this level, but the only way to fix the situation is to build more fire stations in areas where coverage is light.

If approved by a majority of Vista voters, Prop. L will add an estimated $6 million a year to city coffers until it expires in 30 years. With that money, the city plans to build two additional fire stations at a total cost of $13 million and pay the salaries to staff one of them. The other one will be staffed with a current crew. Another $1.25 million will be put toward improving Fire Station No. 1.

City officials also plan to use $1.5 million a year to reinstate two community policing teams that were cut from the city's budget in 2004.

That's one of the reasons the city is going for a sales tax increase as opposed to a property tax. With the sales tax, the city can use the money to pay salaries, whereas a property tax can only be used to build facilities.

Beyond public safety, the city also has a number of public facilities it wants to build or improve. The tax will pay for $5 million in upgrades and a new stage house at Moonlight Amphitheatre -- the city's outdoor theater at Brengle Terrace Park that serves as an important cultural center for all of North County -- and $15 million worth of sports fields and a public gymnasium at Guajome City Park.

A little less than $40 million will be put toward building a new civic center to replace City Hall. The current facility was built as a school in 1956 and was condemned in the late 1970s. City Hall moved into the school in 1981 temporarily until a new civic center could be built.

Twenty-five years later, that hasn't happened because the city hasn't had the money. There's any number of reasons why -- Vista takes in less money per capita than any other city in the county, and its economic development has lagged behind the city's neighbors. But we're hopeful that will turn around, especially considering the success of the Vista Village project downtown.

City officials cite future development as a reason to build a new city hall -- one that makes it easier for residents and those doing business with the city to access various city departments.

Vista's current facility, though old and funky, is something the city should take pride in because it's not overly opulent. We hope a new building, when it's constructed, is built in that tradition. We'd much rather see something akin to Poway's new office building than Escondido's palace.

Again, Vista's sales tax measure doesn't make the top of our list of priorities when looking at the tax increases on the ballot, but the public safety measures and community amenities it will pay for might make it worth the extra 50-cent charge for every $100 spent in the city.