You Tell Us: Why I oppose Measure I
on October 10, 2011
In 2004, Oakland officials put Measure Y on the ballot. Jean Quan, then a City Councilmember, “guaranteed“ that Measure Y would give us 63 additional officers, for a total of 802, for 10 years. Quan was quoted by the Oakland Tribune at the time: “…the money raised by Measure Y will be used to expand the department to 802 officers…All of us have to run for re-election – none of us would break such an obvious promise.“
Seven years and three lawsuits later, after having received approximately $120 million from the generous taxpayers who approved Measure Y, we have a total of 650 officers, and the force is shrinking every month. Obviously, they broke their promises. And this isn’t the only broken promise on Oakland’s record. Measure Q promised that all branch libraries would be open six days per week. Today, none of them are, but the tax is still being collected.
Now, City officials are once again asking Oakland’s already financially strapped taxpayers to approve yet another parcel tax. Measure I will cost Oakland homeowners approximately $400 each over the next five years, and renters will also be subject to the tax. To their credit, Oakland officials have learned something from the failures of Measure Y. They learned that they are incapable of keeping their promises. So this time around, they aren’t making any promises, which you will see if you read the actual ballot measure. Measure I is a $55 million blank check.
The propaganda in favor of the measure is business as usual, however. Knowing full well that political flyers aren’t legally binding, proponents are trying to convince voters that the approximately $11 million annual tax will help “restore” a whole panoply of services. But the actual language of Measure I does not provide for improvements in any public services. It does not include any provisions for additional police, improved roads, increased library hours, or additional park maintenance. It is a blank check, a general tax disguised as a special tax, with even less oversight and accountability than the failed Measure Y.
Proponents blame the “global recession” for Oakland’s financial problems. Except that this isn’t true. Oakland was claiming it was broke and needed Measure Y taxes back in 2004 — the height of the economic boom. Supporters are also trying to convince taxpayers that they need to do their “fair share” by paying more.
Except that we already pay far more in property taxes than most other cities in California. In fact, on a $500,000 home, Oakland homeowners pay over $1,700 more a year than those in San Francisco! And while most union concessions are for two or three years, this tax lasts for five, which is not “fair,” either.
Supporters of the new tax are the same City officials who have mismanaged Oakland’s finances for years — the same leadership that Oakland’s own former City Attorney recently called “morally corrupt.” Measure I will do nothing to solve Oakland’s fiscal mess, or to address the fact that Oakland is over $450 million in debt for pension obligations it can’t afford. Oakland has no long-term plan on how to create fiscal sustainability, and this tax is nothing but a Band-aid on a gaping wound. Vote No on Measure I.
Marleen L. Sacks is a member of Oaklanders Against The Parcel Tax. You can read more about the group at http://noonoaklandparceltax.blogspot.com
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29 Comments
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This is such a pile of straw man arguments and ad hominem attacks I’m surprised Oakland North agreed to print it.
Here are the questions we should be asking as Oaklanders:
1. What services do we hope our city will provide?
2. How will we pay for it?
(And while it is a necessity to hold elected officials responsible for mis-management, but you offer no suggestions on how to do that, only insults.)
My own answer to question 1: I’d like to live in a city where I can go to the library, where medical care is easily accessible, where the schools are good and the streets are safe, where parks are maintained and recreation programs keep our citizens healthy and happy.
In answer to question 2, I know of only one effective model for paying for these services: taxes. This is how Northern European countries ensure their humane, high quality lifestyles. And this is how San Francisco manages to provide more services than we do (for example Healthy San Francisco is paid for by taxes.) Should taxes come primarily from the wealthy? Absolutely. Should they be exttraced primarily at the federal and state levels? Sure, they should. And we should work toward that. I’ll be at Occupy Oakland at Frank Ogawa Plaza this afternoon in part to voice my support for a fair tax system that makes rich people pay their share. But in the mean time, we have to deal with the fact that Oakland, like almost every large city in the United States, is in a financial crisis and we must pay for services now and here or we will not have them.
You make no alternate proposal for how to pay for services. Is there some money you want to be redirected? Or is it that you’d rather we had no libraries, no police, no maintenance of our physical infrastructure? No public parks? If you want public services, how do you propose to pay for them? And if you don’t want them, why not be upfront in your op ed with your real agenda?
I’m willing to bet that most homeowners in Oakland pay 80 bucks a year in mobile phone, cable TV and other non-essential bills. Since I know that any parcel tax is somewhat regressive in that it does not account for differences in income, I don’t think this is an ideal solution. But while we work for the ideal, I hope we won’t be so stingy as to neglect the public good.
Felix: Of course taxpayers need to help by for needed City services, like libraries and police. And we do! In fact, Oaklanders pay around $1700 more a YEAR than San Francisco homeowners, and we seem to get less and less.
The problem is that this tax does not promise any improvement in services at all. And when previous taxes did promise improvements in City services, they did not deliver. For example, Measure Q promised branch libraries would be open 6 days a week. Except now we’re paying that tax, and the branches are still open only 5 days a week. I have lots of proposal to help pay for necessary city services. Proposal Number One is for the City to demonstrate that is a good steward for our money and to honor the promises it has already made with respect to the extra taxes (e.g. Q and Y) we are already paying.
Marleen, I’d like to hear your real and specific proposals for how to close the current budget gap, not just vague statements like, “I have lots of proposals”.
If your wish is primarily for elected officials to “honor the promises” they already made, as you seem to state in the op ed, that would expand current services. How would they do that with the money the city now has? Do you honestly believe we can pay for increased library hours and more police given the current income levels of this city? IF so, I’d love to see your budgeting proposal, and I’m sure City Hall would too.
Your points about Measure Q etc are either underinformed or disingenuous. Surely you know the libraries were open 6 days a week until the current budget crisis happened? To pretend that Measure Q was never honored as written is manipulative.
How exactly do you hope to change what you seem to see as a dishonest culture among our elected officials? Are you suggesting that if we do not pay this parcel tax, that somehow our politicians will magically become “good stewards” of our money?
Where exactly do you think the money we currently spend on taxes are going? Are you suggesting it is being pocketed?
Oaklanders do not pay more taxes than Berkeley or SF residents in real terms. SF pays a separate tax for Healthy San Francisco. If you want to only compare housing taxes, we are still not the top in the Bay Area.
Again, I’d like to hear the specifics of how you propose to pay for services right now.
You oppose Measure I. Then tell me a real alternative please. If all you can come up with is the Tea Party-esque assertion that politicians are crooks and taxes are unfair, I’m not going to be convinced.
Oakland has a long track record of wasting taxpayer money. For example, Oakland paid around $10 million in recruitment costs to get the police force up to the promised 803 officers. Then a few months later, it laid off 80 officers. So that’s $10 million down the drain. This $1 million election is another example.
Oakland also dramatically expanded pension benefits in 2003,to a level far higher than most other cities in the state, which will likely cost us tens of millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions, in the years to come. See http://www.dpa.ca.gov/tcs2006/exhibit-f.htm for the chart showing how Oakland’s pension benefits compare to those of other public entities.
Oakland currently owe $495 million for PFRS pension debt, and had no way to pay for it. One obvious proposal to address the financial problems is to renegotiate some of these pension obligations, like other public entities are working on. (e.g. San Jose) See http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_19007667
So your proposal is basically to cut pension benefits then, eh? Thanks for clarifying. I’m not interested.
I’m voting YES on Measure I. I’m sick of the ‘tea-party’ style blame that some of the opponents are putting out. The simple truth is that Measure I is a simple 5-year, $80 per house parcel tax to fund SPECIFIED services for Oakland residents. We’re in the worst recession since WW II and it’s hit virtually every medium and large city in California (not to mention, the most of the country). Voting NO is a sad ‘cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face’ behavior that will hurt the rest of Oakland as well.
Measure I monies could ONLY be spent on the 7 program areas specified in the measure. The opponents are misleading their neighbors about his measure and that is also quite sad. I urge everyone to VOTE YES on Measure I.
Dan, I urge you to read the measure. The types of services that can be funded are basically all the major services that the City spends money on anyway. There are no specifics at all. By the way, please look at who is opposed to this measure. Former Council President and current council member Ignacio Delafuente is opposed to this measure. A labor leader by profession, are you going to call him a “teapartier?” Are you going to accuse him of biting off his nose to spite his face? Councilwoman Desley Brooks is also not supporting this new tax. You need to consider why even members of the Council itself are opposed to it.
Tea partiers. You’re right. Tell the members of the Green Party that they must be secret tea partiers because they also oppose Measure I.
http://www.macleay4mayor.org/html/nov_2011_ballot_measures.html
-len raphael, cpa
Yes on Oakland, No on H,I,J
Len, I’m not accusing anyone of being a Tea Partier and neither is Dan. We are both pointing out that this editorial takes a stand that echoes the Tea Party anti-tax position.
A Straw Man argument is when you “create the illusion of having refuted a position by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition.” That’s what you’re doing.
I want city services. I don’t think we can pay for them only with pension cuts (which is the only alternative I’ve heard so far). The cities that have “renegotiated” city worker pensions are still in economic hot water. But even if we could do it soley on the backs of our elderly retired city workers, I wouldn’t want to. Parcel taxes are somewhat regressive and certainly imperfect. But while we work for a tax structure that makes the rich pay more, I’m not willing to lose the few library, fire, recreation, and infrastructure services we still have left.
Felix, I voted for Measure Y. And I was let down. So there I was, willing to tax myself more, so don’t accuse me of being a “tea partier.” By the way, when two of the signatories to the argument against this new, regressive tax are Ignacio De La Fuente and Desley Brooks, you can hardly call the opposition “teapartiers.” The arguments I make deal with promises the City broke, and fiscal irresponsibility. There is no political party or movement that endorses this sort of misconduct.
Felix and Dan, the flaw in your support of I, is that you’re thinking it will maintain the current level of services we currently have.
At least you don’t buy into Quan and the gang’s story that it will “restore” anything for more than a year or two.
The problem with I isn’t so much that there is no specific plan for how to spend it for the next two years, because when the mostly temporary furloughs and wage raises that Quan and council and unions called “fair share’ pay cuts expire in two to three years, the 11Mill/year Measure I additional revenue all has to go to paying for those boomerang “fair share” temporary concessions.
Add in the 40Mill/year PFRS payments that will start this year and hit big time when the “reserves” exhaust, plus the retirement costs of the baby boomer workers who are going to retire before they get laid off or have to work 40hour weeks etc, plus the Calpers contributions when the actuarials assumptions for city contributions drop to 4 pct from current 7.5%.
You can’t raise parcel taxes enough in a town this poor to pay for those kind of costs.
We have to cut costs without cutting essential services. Whether that means cutting wages to firefighters and cops, or cutting grants to ineffective anti violence programs, I can’t tell you without getting a lot more data than currently available.
The other day i went online to oaklandnet.com to look at recently passed city 2 year budget and revised 5 year budget.
Couldn’t find them.
I asked a member of the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee where I could find them. Reply: doesn’t exist. They can’t get a copy either.
Literally, there is no plan, short or long term for how to get out of our hole.
To ask us private citizens to provide an alternative to another parcel tax, avoids the question you should be asking our elected officials:
provide a mid and long term fiscal plan that includes three scenarios for revenues and costs: somewhat pessimistic, neutral, and somewhat optimistic.
Even though OUSD is legally separate from the City govt, it’s financial needs have to be coordinated with the City’s general fund needs.
Before you ask Marleen or me or other opponents of Measure I, ask the City officials to show us how we can possibly get thru the next ten years without drastically cutting costs or raising annual parcel taxes by close to 1,000.
-len raphael, cpa. 4922 desmond street
Yes on Oakland
by Voting NO on Measures H, I, J
NoOnOaklandParcelTax.com
It’s another logical fallacy that holding elected officials accountable and voting yes on I are mutually exclusive. You oppose I because you want a long term budget plan. But I failing does not make a magical budget plan appear! And if I succeeds, there is no reason we can’t continue to hold the Council and Mayor accountable for longer-term sustainable budgeting. The lack of X does not equal Y.
An involved citizen could certainly vote yes on I AND pressure their representatives to come up with a long term budget plan. I know I plan to do both. (And more importantly, plan to continue to support re-structuring State and Federal tax structures. Are you folks out at Occupy Oakland pressuring California’s rich to fix the mess they caused? I have been. Have you been working to repeal Prop 13? Because if you want to talk about sustainability, we can’t pay for schools, hospitals, roads, and all our other needs by cutting pensions forever. There are only so many pensions to cut after all, and our basic services have been declining across the state since the 70s.)
Felix, in a perfect world with a highly engaged citizenry and multiple attentive, inquisitive local news media, I’d agree with you.
But this as a city where the PFRS underfunding has been known by every city officials since the late 80’s and repeated buried with new bond issuances.
Measure J gives the City officials an unspecified amount of additional time to stretch out funding a pension fund that should have been funded a decade ago when most of the covered employees were still working. That’s what normal governments do.
The general fund budget problems are more recent, but not as recent as Quan and most of the council would have us believe. eg. The 700 Mill non funding of the medical retirement benefits has been noted in the city’s financial statements for years. Three years ago, one council member publicly stated it was a serious problem.
For the past 2 years our officials have dodged coping with the structural fiscal problems of a city with declining revenues rising costs by playing shell games with reserved funds, temporary furloughs, temporary pay cuts, and eliminating empty positions. Don’t forget millions of bucks by charging back overhead to Redevelopment Agency and abusing blight fines.
Voting No on I and J isn’t any tea party starve the beast stuff.
It is a simple act of denying our officials the ability to delay restoring our city government to long term fiscal health so that it can provide the cost effective services it needs to grow and prosper.
It’s good that you’ll keep pressing officials to tackle the underlying fiscal problems. But based on past history here, you’re wasting your time.
Voting yes on I and J is giving our officials the ok to punt for yet another 6 months to a year till they run out of money again.
-len raphael, cpa
Yes on Oakland
by Voting NO on Measures H, I, J
NoOnOaklandParcelTax.com
Allowing I and J to pass might well give a 6 month to a year reprieve of cuts in some services.
That reprieve comes at the unacceptable cost of delaying the decisions about which service costs (that’s not the same as which services) have to be cut and how to do that.
The delay is unacceptable because the longer we delay things like renagotiating contracts with vendors, employees, and non-profits, the deeper our current and future fiscal deficits become to a point where the future cuts have to even deeper than if they were made now, not later.
Almost certainly we will have to raise taxes someway. Wish it were only be the cost of a now much more expensive cup of coffee, but it will have to be much much higher, depending on how the cost cutting goes.
You can’t ask people to pay more taxes until that cost cutting and priority resetting is done. Too many people here are struggling to make their rent and house payments as it is.
Common sense stuff, but much the way our elected leaders have been paralysed on dealing with violent crime rates, they are caught in the headlights of our deteriorating short and long term fiscal crisis.
If any reader wants to help defeat H, I, or J please contact me at len.raphael@gmail.com to request a “lawn” sign or volunteer to hand out flyers etc.
-len raphael, cpa
Yes on Oakland
by Voting NO on Measures H, I, J
NoOnOaklandParcelTax.com
Neither of you have responded to my specific critiques. You continue to make fallacious arguments that claim that lack of x = y without providing any evidence that it does. You keep making vague statements about “cost cutting” and “restructuring” but have not provided a specific or meaningful alternative to fund city services. This is not good faith debate.
Felix, how long have you lived in Oakland?
How many years have you been active trying “to pressure their representatives to come up with a long term budget plan” ?
Surprise me by saying more than 2 years and I’ll say you’re an incurable optimist.
I was born at Kaiser Oakland and lived on the corner of E34th and 13th Avenue for my first 12 years. My family moved to Sacramento but I returned here in my early 20s and, except for a couple years in Berkeley, have lived in various Oakland neighborhoods ever since (I’m now 37). I have attended city council meetings, I write to city councilors and my mayor periodically as issues arise, I attended library closures demonstrations, I have attended events in support of our schools, I have donated to Oakland-centric causes, I have talked to my neighbors and campaigned for candidates I support, and as I mentioned, I’ve been showing up to Occupy Oakland when I can. As a single, working parent, it’s hard to make time to do more, but I do think it’s important and try to prioritize it.
However, even if I had just arrived in Oakland last week and was purely an armchair complainer, that would not matter a lick when assessing whether Measure I is a good idea or not.
You still haven’t responded to my request for a viable alternative funding proposal, nor have you explained your assertion that by voting no on I we will somehow magically have accountable city government. Ad hominem attacks, straw man arguments, irrelevant conclusions and argumentum verbosium don’t make up for basically flawed positions.
Felix, you want the opponents of I to provide a “viable alternative funding proposal”
Would you say i was using a straw man tactic if i asked you to explain how Measure I’s 11Mill/year tax is “viable” when:
1. it won’t even get collected for another year
2. city’s own projections show 75Mill/deficits for the foreseeable future
3. the “fair share” employee concessions are mostly temporary and expire over the next 2 to three years
To tax our way out of the deficits, retirement obligations, and infrastructure costs we face here, would require parcel tax close to 1,000/year by my very rough estimates. That’s not counting the money
OUSD deserves to get because it is serious about cutting costs permanently unlike the City.
Show me that a vastly higher parcel tax than 80/year will be viable when Oakland already has one of the highest foreclosure rates and highest unemployment rates in the country.
Fine for you to occupy oakland’s city hall plaza and demand higher taxes on wealthy people and corporations. Meanwhile, until the revolution comes, the only two ways to budget our local budget is to impose a 1,000/year parcel tax or drastically cut costs by either laying off employees/cutting programs or cutting what we pay those employees and non profits.
My choice is cutting what we pay those employees and non profits. Only after doing that should raising parcel taxes be considered.
Can I assume that you would oppose a parcel tax greater than 80/year?
From you previous comments is it fair to summarize your position as you don’t reduce city employee compensation, don’t reduce retirement benefits? (Didn’t see anything in your comments about demanding competitive bidding for non profit service providers, but unless you say otherwise, I’ll assume you don’t think that’s desirable.)
So all that leaves as options under your plan is laying off employees and cutting programs.
Sorry, that’s unacceptable to me when city employees are among the highest paid in the country and they get to retire at age 55 with free medical for them and their dependents for life. They can easily get 80% of their highest last 3 years’ of salary as a pension for life.
Since we can’t print money or run permanent deficits like the feds, I think most residents will vote to tell the City do not raise taxes until we first cut employee salaries and retirement benefits closer to what most of us have.
if the employees refuse, change the city charter to allow outsourcing. if the firefighters and cops wont take cuts, repeal binding arbititration.
Do not lay off employees or give furlough days.
Do not reduce our already mediocre services.
Demand concessions from non profits and replace the ineffective one with effective programs.
len raphael, cpa
Vote Yes on Oakland
by VOTING NO on H, I, J
if the employees current and retired won’t voluntarily make concessions on their vested retirement benefits, I understand entirely.
That’s when the City has to do what other cities are starting to do: tell the employees to make concessions on the retirement benefits or take their chances with a Federal bankruptcy judge in just a few years.
The Measure I parcel tax can be passed on to renters. As a renter, that’s all I need to know to vote “NO”.
Felix, still showing up at Occupy Oakland?
A buddy went down to City Hall today and describes spray painted images of pigs with arrows thru their heads or some such wierdness. Thus pesky outside agitators again.
O/O has gone from Woodstock to Altamont at internet speed, but until Friday night, Quan and most of the Council still thought it was the Summer of Love.
Ya know, I was all set to “to the right thing” and vote for the mayor’s measures. Hmm but let’s see, what was the cost of hovering some helicopters and calling out 500 police to tear gas political protesters who are simply engaging in constitutionally protected assembly? Well I’ll bet it was alot more than my 80$ a year for the next five years… So no I will not support these or any additional measures.
Oakland Tribune editorial: Oakland voters should reject Measures I and J
Oakland Tribune editorial
Oakland Tribune editorial
© Copyright 2011, Bay Area News Group
Posted: 10/27/2011 04:00:00 PM PDT
Updated: 10/27/2011 04:43:07 PM PDT
Oakland’s financial situation is serious: After irresponsibly rapidly ramping up spending a decade ago, city officials have repeatedly failed to make tough choices about budget priorities. At the same time, they gambled on the market and lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Then the real estate collapse of the Great Recession badly eroded property tax revenues, leaving the city struggling to fund critical public services.
No reasonable person wants more killings and less law enforcement. But Measures I and J in the Nov. 15 vote-by-mail election are symptoms of the problem, not solutions to it. For more than a decade, officials have managed city finances as if they had a limitless credit card. They have gone back to voters repeatedly for more funds while running up astronomical debt.
I don’t feel sorry for people who own 1/2 a million dollar houses, give me a break, yes, tax us.
Have you been to a neighborhood or school in East Oakland, where I live? Reality check.
I live in a 168,000 house that I partly own with a bank and I would like to be taxed more if it means that it will be safer and that children will have a slightly better school.
TAX ME.
lydia, most of the opponents of I aren’t knee jerk opponents of taxes. If anything parcel taxes are especially burdensome on owners of homes below 500k because they are the same by state regardless of home value.
If only an 80/year parcel tax would improve security and schools.
First, 0 goes to schools.
Second, even if you believe our officials want to stick to their non binding resolution on spending half on cops, they simply can’t, because the projected deficits are about 7X the size of this parcel tax.
That avoids the whole question as to why are we spending any more money on cops until we get all city employees to cut their retirement costs and benefits and for many, their wages.
Then lets talk about a parcel tax that coordinates with OUSD’s need for more money too.
-len raphael, cpa
No on Quan’s H,I,J
Recall Quan
correction: “same by state law regardless of home value”
I think these measures will fail because too many Oakland voters are fed up with waste and abuse by iur city officials. I for one have come to favor bankruptcy as that would let us reset on all city costs from $180k a year police to $150k a year firefighters to pension of $200k and more pe year for police who pension spike and retire at 50. Felix Dan and co may enjoy paying for a couple thousand city workers and retirees to make 5x what average Oakland workers make, but rhat won’t get my vote. And Mr Kritik of Argument Felix has one of his fundamentals wrong – with skepticism running so high against these boondogles we don’t have to convine HIM, HE needs to convince US. Since his arguments are unpersuasive, all 3 of these will fail.
Mayor Quan is backing Measures H,I,and J.
H takes away the right of the residents to elect an independent City Attorney. Quan wants to be able to appoint her own yes woman or man.
I is a regressive 11M/year tax that gives Quan and council a little wiggle room to evade grappling with our massive structural (ie. not temporary) deficits that are at least 75Mill/year. The amount might be chump change to people in the hills, but to the tens of thousand of struggling home owners in the flats, this is just more money out the door that they won’t see any benefit from because the 11Mill will disappear into those 75Mill annual deficits.
Measure J is bogus pension “reform” that further shifts the burden to younger residents to pay for the pensions of already retired city employees, many of whom retired before our younger residents were even born.
J is the kind of pension “reform” the big muni unions love and the incumbents they get elected write op-ed pieces and send out mailers on city letterhead to endorse.
-len raphael
Vote No on Quan’s H,I,J
recallquan.com
A Petition for Recall of Mayor Quan was filed in the afternoon on Monday Nov 7th at the City Clerk’s Office.
There was a ten day waiting period after the Notice of Intent to Circulate Recall Petition was filed on Oct 24th. The Mayor responded at the end of the 10 day period last week.
The Petition itself is the same as the original version that was the Notice of Intention with the only allowable change being the appending of the Mayor’s response.
The City Clerk has an additional 10 days to review the documents and then if approved, the petition goes to print and signature collection starts.
At that point the Petition is effectively public domain, in that anyone can collect signatures and submit to the Clerk for verification.
Without going thru the same process, the petition cannot be altered in any way.
A copy of the filing dated Nov 7, 2011 is in the files section of this group.
-len raphael
Vote No on Quan’s H,I,J
recallquan.com