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HAPPY 2020, Anaheim Democrats! Let’s make these Twenties ROAR!
Our first meeting of the decade will be this Saturday, January 4, same bat-time (12:15 to 1:45), same bat-station (Haskett Branch Library by Maxwell Park.) And it will be short and punchy just as many of you-all requested!
Our one guest speaker will be AUHSD trustee Annemarie Randle-Trejo, who is running for Council 4th district to take the place of the awful, termed-out Lucille Kring. IT IS ESSENTIAL for our city that this seat is taken by somebody we can trust, someone who will work for the PEOPLE, and won’t be part of the kleptocratic Sidhu Majority. Each of us who live in that south-Anaheim district will have to decide which trustworthy candidate is most likely to beat whatever candidate the Disney-Chamber Axis puts up. This Saturday we’ll let Annemarie make her case.
And as always the exciting last half of the meeting will be Councilman Jose Moreno’s monthly update on the ongoing Fleecing of Anaheim, and what we can do to stop it or slow it down. He’s sure to have some news we don’t know about yet, and to answer all our questions. I know I’ll want to know:
- Is there anything we can do to stop this terrible Angels giveaway?
- How exactly does Dr. Howard Knoll’s very popular proposal for an Anaheim Performing Arts Center clash with the Angels giveaway, does it represent a schism in Anaheim’s ruling class that we can utilize, and is there anything we can (or should) do to help make the Performing Arts Center happen?
- Is there enough popular anger at the bad Angels deal, and the fact they won’t put Anaheim in the team name, to propel a 2020 recall of Mayor Sidhu? (The seniors of Rancho La Paz are not waiting for an answer to that, and are starting January 2.)
But, apart from collecting recall signatures, there’s not a lot we can do right now to change the Anaheim Council – the March 3 primary has other important races we should be concerned about first. And on that note…
Q: How do you eat an elephant?
A: One bite at a time.
This old and wise witticism applies perfectly to our efforts to improve our county’s Board of Supervisors AND Board of Education. We need a much more honest and humane BOS as well as a BOE that’s not allergic to sex education and not unquestioningly in love with any and all Charter Schools – and both of those come down to us north county Democrats.
Early voting for the March primary starts in a month – February 3! Helping Ashleigh Aitken beat Don Wagner will be the first step in getting a better BOS, and helping Andy Thorburn beat Ken Williams will be the first step in getting a better BOE – and both of those districts include Anaheim Hills, Orange and Yorba Linda – not far for any of us!
Ashleigh is speaking at our NEXT meeting Feb. 1, and she would like us all to walk and/or phone-bank for her – either right after the meeting or soon after. I think we should walk for Ashleigh, Andy, AND get signatures for “Schools and Communities First.” What do you all think?
And yes, don’t forget to be getting your signatures to get Schools and Communities First on the ballot – we’ve been trying to reform Prop 13 for decades and 2020 is the year we can make it happen. The Golden State doesn’t need to have pathetic chronically underfunded schools ANY LONGER.
See you all Saturday and HAPPY 2020!
It Should be a Great Afternoon of Entertainment!
Happy New Year 2020!!
“The Golden State doesn’t need to have pathetic chronically underfunded schools ANY LONGER.”
Ho ho ho. My property tax bill is laden with all sorts of school bond debt allegedly floated to improve education. And yet failure level remains as bad as ever even as CalSTRS costs soar. And more bonds are being snuck onto the March ballot across OC with virtually no public notice.
And wasn’t the performing arts idiocy perpetrated by Kris Murray? Popular?
Bingo.
This letter needs less sloganeering and more “Stupid Decisions We’re Repeating From Failed Detroit.”
It seems like it’s the proposed “Split Roll” reform that is upsetting you two conservatives. I’ll be writing a lot about that in the coming months, and hope to have some good debates. But for now, some time this week, I will be reprinting a 2014 OJ story by the late lamented Los Alamitos activist JM Ivler on the topic:
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2014/06/how-proposition-13-began-to-screw-us-over-the-years-and-how-to-fix-it/
Don’t jump to conclusions, Vern.
The issue isn’t about reform. The architects behind this change don’t want fairness, they want more money.
That’s not reform, it’s just raising taxes.
Would you support split roll if all of its proceeds went into lowering other taxes?
I think looking beyond split roll is fair.
Prop 13 drives young families out of the state. It’s not equitable, it gets less equitable every year and every time a bond gets passed, and will be more inequitable after split roll carves out its own special favored groups.
Uhhh … it sounds to me like you’re making an argument against Prop 13 itself.
Dems have given up arguing against Prop 13 as a whole. Every time it happens, we lose. The reason that young families (or pretty much anyone) have to leave the state is that the price of and taxes on new home purchases are just too high. Part of the price being too high is that California is a desirable place to live; part of the taxes being too high is that recent purchases are paying some of the fair share of taxes that would otherwise be paid by long-term residents (often retirees) and potentially immortal holding companies that own office buildings. Prop 13 was intended to help the former group; it was not intended to help the latter. So what split roll does is ease some of the pressure on individual taxpayers who are paying taxes that should be paid by quasi-immortal holders of commercial real estate. Advocates for human residential taxpayers should favor this.
Indeed I am.
The one good thing Prop 13 does is limit the amount of money Sacramento can steal from taxpayers to waste on their latest scheme.
Because of that, I wouldn’t vote to touch it– because anything labeled by Democrats isn’t actually about making it fair. It’s about increasing revenue by any means and any argument necessary.
We just saw the same thing with the gas tax. It wasn’t to fix roads.
So your (and obviously Zenger’s) governing principle in the face of fires, homelessness, fomestic violence and other crises is simply “starve the beast”?
That’s sn extremely simple, easy, and cavalier attitude to take. (<== me being nice) My position (and I think Vern’s) is to recognize that waste and self-dealing and other corruption related to tax dollars is a serious problem ... snd then fight it, street by street, house by house. It’s not like politicians need to tax in order to foster waste and corruption; you can do that with non-fiscal legislation as well. And, furthermore, you’re simply not going to get taxes low enough here to where we have to eliminate the legislature. (And if we do that — well, an unchecked strong executive is worse.) I’d like to think that you don’t simply want to strangle government in the bathtub — it’s so ludicrous that it’s barely with arguing over, except that some impressionable eighth-graders might be reading — so I hope that you’ll agree that fairer taxation is a positive in itself, and I’d be fine to see some proceeds used to, for example, reduce vehicle license fees on lesser value cars. P.S. Anyone who’s been driving on the 57/60 recently knows that gas tax money is indeed being used to fix and build roads.
False premise. Obviously.
So, no.
Ryan – free advice: Avoid arguing with a fundamentally disingenuous individual. You’ll never get an honest or a straight answer.
OK, Ryan, if that’s not your governing principle, why do you prioritize avoiding a tax increase on property holding companies above any of the other pressing needs of the state?
Is it because not all of what you consider “fat” has yet been cut from the state budget?
Because the state has an enormous budget, yet blames revenue for its failures.
Its failures are in its decisions, not in its revenue. Increasing the latter unfortunately enables the former.
(1) How is that not “Starve the Beast” (a la Grover Norquist)?
(2) Be that as it may, why not solve the fairness problem between humans and holding companies when it comes to property tax? That honking disparity is wrong, it’s stupid, and it can’t wait for shrinking the state budget to a size of your liking before we allow ourselves to solve it.
Seriously, push for the savings to lower other taxes. But don’t get in the way of restructuring the system to be more fair.
Not giving more isn’t starving.
“Be that as it may, why not solve the fairness problem between humans and holding companies when it comes to property tax?”
The only disparity concerns mortality, but this isn’t what’s being addressed by the tax increase.
As I said before, if this were actual reform, I’d be excited. It’s not. It’s just a tax increase to benefit the paychecks of those pushing for it.
The disparity is that, in several ways, the present system allows commercial property owners — mostly to the benefit of their tenants — to avoid that taxation that similarly situated domestic property owners have. Potential immortality of corporate holding companies is a big part of that, but not the only one.only one.
Most domestic property owners are disadvantaged compared to owners who purchased their houses earlier than they did (presuming a general upward trend in housing prices) — but that’s a valid policy choice intentionally made at the time that Prop 13 was adopted, in order to allow people (especially the elderly) to stay in their homes rather than be forced out by rising assessments.
Prop 13 was not designed to, nor should it, provide “landlords” who rent to a succession of large business interests fore potentially centuries. I understand that you want higher taxes, but you should not hold that hostage to making the tax system more fair for human homeowners and renters.
Don’t be too sure what is upsetting me or you’ll start sounding like your partner.
Proposition 13 drove the ever-hungry maw of government into new directions and strategies. That’s why California has such a Byzantine structure of taxes and fees.
But I wouldn’t touch Prop 13 property tax protection without a commensurate and guaranteed reduction in statewide tax. And good luck with that.
Re. Performing Arts “idiocy perpetrated by Kris Murray.” Do I really have to roll out the “broken clock” cliche? I could just as well say it’s a great idea because Cynthia Ward and Jose Moreno both think it’s great, which they do.
The idea was, and is, stupid. The fact that Murray pulled it out of thin air just reinforced the idiocy.
I’ve been looking for ballot measures in the March ballot and haven’t found any. Apparently, you have found some bond measures. If you tell me where I can find them, I’ll provide some public notice.
Sorry, but waste fraud, and corruption DON’T have to be fought “, street by street, house by house…” Here are two addresses that will save some shoe leather –
300 Capitol Mall, Suite 1850
Sacramento, California 95814
Phone (916) 445-2636
Fax (916) 322-4404
888 South Figueroa Street, Suite 2050
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Phone (213) 833-6010
Fax (213) 833-6011
They are the offices of one Betty Yee, CA State Controller, who has given CA the distinction among states of having the total ABSENCE of fiscal transparency, usually a good indication of all 3 offenses above, as detailed here-
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2019/12/12/californias-accounting-system-cost-taxpayers-11-billion-and-still-cant-produce-a-state-checkbook
a link which I believe I previously shared elsewhere on this blog.
Is it too much to ask for THE LEAST BIT OF EVIDENCE that what we give in taxes NOW is used honestly and responsibly, BEFORE (in a supposed SURPLUS year) the suction needle gets stuck in DEEPER ? Evidently that’s the prevailing opinion.
Yes but e are supposed to measure our virtue by how much tax we pay. That’s “progressivism.” Always has been.