I reported here earlier about the Chicago Mayoral race and Carol Moseley Braun’s use of parking as a watershed issue. A similar tact is being taken in San Francisco. As you know, by reading this blog, the City of SF, in a rare moment of clarity and candor, told the world that they were going to turn on the heat on parkers and increase the number of citations written. The goal was to close a budget gap with parking ticket income.
Here you can see that the city assessor, who is running for mayor, feels that the city’s budget shouldn’t be closed on the backs of parkers and has got a petition going to stop the evil parking Nazis from catching all those poor innocent folks who may have inadvertently overstayed a meter or parked across a driveway.
The assessor, Phil Ting, has said he would rather raise property taxes. Hell yes, if you are going to tax someone, just do it. None of this back door taxation with parking tickets. I am definitely going to support this guy – not a word about lowering expenses, cutting services, stopping waste., Nope -=- Change the only thing that has saved California from complete ruin – Prop 13, which limits the amount of property taxes a city can charge to 1% of the assessed valuation at the time the property was purchased.
A word of advice to the wizards, and Baghdad by the Bay award nominees, in the innards of the city and county of San Francisco. Why couldn’t you simply have put a bug in the ear of the enforcement department to have each officer write two more citations a day and let it go at that? The revenue would have gone up and no one would have noticed. After all 90% of the violations in your fair city, and everywhere else for that matter, don’t get cited anyway. Instead you announce to the world that on the heels of your new SF park program, you are going to come down hard on scofflaws. Sheesh
JVH
One Response
Coming of age in the San Fernando Valley, I had mixed feelings about Prop 13. Everyone likes to pay lower taxes. But in the years following it’s enactment, the general appearance of areas like Canoga Park seemed to go steadily downhill, as “nice to have” services like trimming the palm trees along Sherman Way were cut, while periodic explosions in property values (partically fueled by affordability of a higher P&I payment) put home ownership well out of reach for many. Basically, the “savings” for property owners was felt by existing home owners in the form of a windfall increase in value. Once the 1980’s came along, people were paying more than ever in total housing costs, while services & state budget shortfalls loomed on the horizon.
Here in Texas, we pay 2.25%, but we have no state income tax, and no wild fluctuations in property values.
It is very nice to hear that California was saved from complete ruin though; we had heard otherwise. :~)