A proposed Tracy downtown business association won approval from the City Council on Tuesday night, but it’ll be mid-December before property owners have their say.

City officials expect a majority of property owners will vote to tax themselves, confidence that is based on petitions signed by many who own property along 10th Street and Central Avenue in the heart of downtown. Owners of about 56 percent of the property inside the proposed district signed petitions in support of the tax. That includes 11 percent from the city, a big downtown property owner.

If most property owners do vote for the tax, the new Downtown Tracy Community Benefit District is expected to have a yearly kitty of $132,000, a pool of cash to brighten downtown at a time when the city itself will cut back on some basics, such as cleaning sidewalks and replacing greenery when it dies.

The council’s vote paved the way for ballots to be mailed to property owners. Those will be tabulated and the results divulged at a public hearing Dec. 15, said Ursula Luna-Reynosa, Tracy’s economic development director.

The move by the city follows months of workshops and meetings with sometimes-skeptical attendees, some of whom complained that a recession is a bad time to start taxing business owners.

Eleventh Street merchants were an especially tough sell. Many of them see no sense in trying to make the heavily-trafficked, four-lane artery an oasis for pedestrian shoppers, said Aimee Parker of the city’s economic development department.

The city acknowledged their point, so 11th Street was cut out of the district, which now will stretch mainly along 10th Street and Central Avenue.

If the district wins approval, it will replace the Downtown Tracy Business Improvement Area, which charges its members dues. Luna-Reynosa says merchants who support the new district will pay about the same amount in increased rent as they now pay in dues.

But the new district would have a lot more money to spend than the existing group, which has a budget of about $30,000.

The proposed district already has a preliminary budget and plans for what members would like to spend the money on. The district would be a nonprofit corporation run by a board of directors.

The biggest chunk of money — $50,000, or 38 percent of the budget — would be spent on special events, such as Friday night’s wine stroll, which organizers said turned a profit this year, as well as for decorations and marketing for the downtown area.

More than $39,000, about 30 percent of the budget, would be earmarked for administrative costs, such as hiring an employee, insurance, rent and legal work.

The new district hopes to spend about $25,000 to spruce up and beautify downtown with regular sidewalk and gutter sweeping, trash pickup, landscaping and quick graffiti removal.

The district is also slated to spend about $12,000 to somehow lure more businesses to set up shop in downtown Tracy.

Other council news

Theresa Yvonne, the manager of the Grand Theatre Center for the Arts, has turned in her resignation to take a similar job in the Southern California desert town of Lancaster.

Yvonne has run the Grand since it opened two Septembers ago. She will be arts manager for the Lancaster Performing Arts Center, a more established theater with a bigger budget than the Grand.

She likened the move to a baseball player moving up from Double A to Triple A.

She called the decision “bittersweet,” because, she said, she’s worked hard to make the Grand a growing success, though she’s excited about her new job.