How Many Bogus Statements Can You Spot In This Letter Signed By Presidents Of LB Police Officers/LB Firefighters Unions Supporting City Hall-Sought Sales Tax Increase To 10% (Measure A)? Here Are A Few We See, Plus Our Comments
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(May 20, 2016) -- LBREPORT.com believes in the principle stated by former U.S. Senator (D, NY) and former U.N. Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.
Below are statements we say are false or misleading in a letter signed by the Presidents of the LB Police Officers Association and LB Firefighters Associations supporting a City Hall-sought sales tax increase to 10% (currently 9% in Signal Hill/Lakewood, 8% in most OC cities) alongside our comments.
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Presidents of LBPOA & LBFFA say:
LBREPORT.com says:
"This critical measure will provide the funding we need to reduce 911 emergency response time by adding an additional fire engine to the eastwide and restoring many of the more than 80 firefighters and 200 police officers we lost during the recession..
The measure never mentions police, firefighters, fire engines. It's a general tax that current and future Councils can spend on any general fund items they wish. Source: City Att'y Impartial Analysis Text: "The measure...proposes a general tax, from which the revenue would be placed in the City's general fund." After the election, the Council could spend the tax revenue for all, some or none of the items being used to lure voters now, or it could spend the tax to give raises to LB's police and firefighter unions whose contracts will be negotiated in the coming months and are the major contributors to the political committee for the tax increase. See LBREPORT.com coverage here and here. The LB Police Officers Ass'n didn't testify in opposition to Council actions from FY10-15 that erased roughly 200 budgeted police officers for LB taxpayers and endorsed Council candidates and incumbents who cast votes to do so. The LBFFA Ass'n initially objected to the budget cuts that reduced fire resources but went on to endorse several incumbents who voted for them. Other nearby cities, including L.A. and Signal Hill, didn't erase the magnitude of budgeted police and fire resources for their taxpayers that LB City Hall did. At the same time, LB's Council voted (including Vice Mayor Garcia, Nov. 2013) to give double digit raises over three years to city management and tied taxpayers (all current incumbents Dec. 2013) to 40+ years of annual increasing payments for a costly new Civic Center (instead of an economical City Hall seismic retrofit with fixed annual costs and voter approval.)
"The infrastructure funds in Measure A will also include money to repair streets, sidewalks and alleys and trim trees here in the easside of Long Beach."
There are no infrastructure funds specified in Measure A; the measure never mentions infrastructure (see citation in answer above.) City management has produced a map and list of projects that it says it will recommend for Council approval; current and future Councils could approve it, change it or ignore it after the election. The Council could have put the items they're listing now in the tax measure itself. That would have provided LB taxpayers with a legal guarantee they'd be funded, but the Mayor and Council didn't do so. Putting the items in the tax measure would have been consistent with Prop 13/Prop 218 [put in the CA constitution by votes of the people] and given taxpayers a legally binding guarantee with 2/3 voter approval (not the 50%+1 level that can impose the "blank check" tax now.)
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