A new wildfire prevention parcel tax for Inverness is all but certain to make it onto the ballot in November. The measure has been in the works since the 2020 Woodward Fire, but its sponsor, Inverness Foundation board member Jerry Meral, made headway at the end of last year. The Inverness Public Utility District worked through the finer points of the proposal with an attorney last week, and although it won’t sponsor the measure, the board is satisfied with the bulk of it. IPUD started out with some existential questions about the 20-cent-per-square-foot tax last September: Would it be redundant, given the new countywide funding from the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority? Would the district have the staff to handle more funding and the programs that it would necessarily entail? And would customers tolerate a new tax after water rates increased this year? But last week’s IPUD meeting saw the board discussing much narrower issues, like the measure’s graywater subsidy. “With the earlier iteration, the issue was whether the district would put the item on the ballot, and the district said ‘no,’” said Wade Holland, IPUD’s customer services manager. “The landscape has changed dramatically since then, since Jerry is going ahead with it as a voter initiative.” Mr. Meral believes that the parcel tax ordinance would need only a majority of votes to pass, after a California appeals court ruled in December that affirmed such measures don’t require two thirds of the vote. He raised the $10,000 necessary for an attorney to draft the ordinance, and doesn’t expect the campaign to require much more fundraising. “Not many people live in Inverness, so we’re not talking about a $5 million campaign here,” Mr. Meral said. “We could literally call up every resident.” IPUD staff did raise some new concerns about Mr. Meral’s draft last week, the most significant of which were centered on the section that described the potential uses of funds. The board wanted to see more flexibility, changing the language from a binding list of programs, including home hardening grants and fuel reduction, to a set of guidelines. “We’re worried that we’re going to be locked into a lot of mandatory programs that can’t be changed other than by going back to the voters,” Mr. Holland said. Mr. Meral was receptive, acknowledging that although it was important to ensure voters know what they’re getting with the ordinance, the language needs to give IPUD options in the future. “This is a permanent measure,” he said. “Climate change is not going to get any better, but of course over the course of many years, needs will change, and new ideas will come up.” Another concern was the measure’s proposal to provide matching funds to customers for rainwater or graywater collection systems. Mr. Holland referenced Marin Water and North Marin Water District’s highly restrictive, sparsely used rebate programs for these systems, and pointed out that IPUD would be obligated to ensure its customers’ systems were legally compliant. “To see just how fraught that is, check the participation requirements and the application details for M.M.W.D.’s and N.M.W.D.’s graywater and rainwater rebate programs on their websites,” Mr. Holland wrote in his response to the proposal. “They are daunting!” Mr. Meral agreed to remove the graywater subsidy, but said enough customers were already buying rainwater systems that a rebate program would make sense. “The voters here are voting with their pocketbooks,” he said, citing a neighbor who recently installed 25,000 gallons of rainwater storage. The district’s existential problems with the tax haven’t disappeared entirely. But Mr. Holland said the parcel tax funds would pay for the management of its projects and that the programs would likely augment what the district can do with M.W.P.A. funds. “I’m not sure there’s anything in there currently that we couldn’t live with,” Mr. Holland said. “Jerry’s always been very receptive to all our suggestions and objections since this started.”