President Nixon signed the Clean Water Act ‘way back in 1972. The 50-year time limit for us to address our nation’s water quality problem is approaching.

We need to start thinking of ways to fulfill our local share ($125M) of this multi-billion dollar, county-wide project.

Permanency

Our elected officials have chosen to put a $99 parcel tax on November’s ballot while incorporating some other changes into the measure. The state of California limits parcel taxes — written without closing dates — to 35 years. But our City Council has decided to sidestep this limit by calling for this new tax measure to be open-ended — or “until ended by voters.”

Jumping Through Hoops

Instead of giving voters finite dates, as the School Board did in 2009 with Measure EE, the Council has decided to make voters have to start the initiative process to end this tax.

Meaning, local citizens would have the arduous task of collecting enough signatures, having them verified by the county and once qualified, paying to have it put on the ballot.

How many times have local citizens taken the initiative in this kind of action? Never! That is why, when you vote on this new tax measure, you should think of it as being a forever, ongoing, permanent tax.

We Want Money

This Council also seems bound and determined to get its $50 due from each of our fixed-income and low-income seniors. Bu, you wouldn’t know it by reading the ballot description.

The 70-word ballot description only says that low-income senior citizens will receive an exemption. It gives no percentage of how much.

Not only are they giving low- income seniors just a 50 percent exemption, instead of the usual full exemption, as in Measure EE, they are demanding that these seniors refile annually to continue to receive their 50 percent exemption.

Then, the seniors still would have to pay the other $50 they still owed.

Council members should be ashamed for not offering these seniors their usual full, 100 percent exemption.
How Much Are We Talking About?

Measure EE, the CCUSD’s $96, limited five-year parcel tax granted about 800 exemptions. That suggests we are only talking about $40,000 — or a 2 percent reduction in revenue. The city has already said that the estimated $2,064,000 raised by the measure will not be enough to cover all of this water project. It isn’t even enough to cover the estimated $4M in annual maintenance, once the project is finished.

Bah! Humbug!

Council members are looking like Scrooges over the modest sum of $40,000. Voters need to ask themselves, “Why are Council members going after these seniors?” Is collecting this extra $40,000 critical to the success of this project?
The Council must really think this $40,000 is vitally necessary for the project to be successful. Or are they just trying to set a precedent to start closing low- income senior tax exemptions altogether?

The limit for ballot descriptions is 75 words. At 70 words, they still could have showed how much the seniors would be receiving. There was still room; they still were five words under the state ballot limit.

Another question locals should ask themselves, “Why isn’t our Council trying to be completely candid with the community about the senior exemption in this ballot description?”

Answering the Right Question

This project has to be done. It is federally mandated; settled back in 1972 by President Nixon. We have to show that we have started our part of the project in the next few years or face federal fines!

Many questions are being asked in this measure. The main one: Do we want to charge $99 a parcel to help pay for our share of the county-wide project?

But there many smaller, and yet far-reaching, questions in this parcel tax measure to address.
Just because the time frame for starting our part of cleaning up our local county watershed is closer at hand, does not mean that we have to accept the unrelated precedents slipped in to change local tax standards.

The few unassuming words tacked on by Council members go far beyond that of just asking us to raise some revenue for a project. They are also asking if we, as voters/taxpayers, want to go along with changing the way we tax ourselves in the future. Do we want to start sticking it to our fixed-income and low-income senior homeowners? Do we mind paying a never-ending parcel tax?

In Perpetuity

The Council, without actually calling for it to be permanent, probably hopes this tax will last forever and a day. It is carefully worded so as not to sound ever-lasting. They hope voters won’t realize that by passing it, it would, in all practical sense of the word, be a permanent tax.

More Honesty, Not Less

In writing its parcel tax description, the Council has gone far beyond just simply asking voters for revenue to help pay our fair share of this federally mandated, county-wide water project. They have slipped in a few unassuming words that could fundamentally change the way local tax measures are written in the future.

We need to show our Council that we expect the utmost in candidness from our local leaders. When it comes to passing local parcel taxes, we want our tax measures to be finite–having beginning and ending dates so we can fully understand their fiscal impacts on our lives.

For this reason alone, we should reject this parcel tax measure and send it back to them for revision, by voting a resounding NO!

Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com