A community planned to boost child care. Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill to do it [latimes.com]

Some of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s staunchest supporters say they are baffled by his decision to block two Bay Area cities from raising local taxes — money that, in one community, would be used to boost child-care services for working-class families.

The governor’s decision late last week to veto legislation on the issue may not be the final word for either city, but it caught local leaders off guard on an effort that had been decidedly noncontroversial as it made its way through the California Legislature.

“I am a little bit perplexed,” Assemblyman Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley), the bill’s author, said Thursday.

Stone’s bill was rejected by Newsom on July 12, one of two bills vetoed before the governor left the state on vacation, the first two he has refused to sign since taking office. The two-page proposal would have allowed Scotts Valley in Santa Cruz County and Emeryville in Alameda County to exceed the statewide cap on local sales taxes — but only if voters approved the plans next year.