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City Policies Reduce Revenues, Add to Homeowner Tax Bite

By GEORGE ORAM
Friday November 21, 2003

To Berkeley City Council: 

The power to tax is the power to destroy. Increasing taxes traditionally forces older, retired, limited income citizens to sell their homes. Many of these people may have voted for you. Will they do so again? 

At the same time you are decreasing city real estate taxes by giving non profits land to build housing that is not needed or wanted. And causing scandal by enriching developers. 

At the same time you are decreasing sales tax revenue by removing parking from downtown. You have just rehabilitated the downtown. We come to the movies and the library. We eat at Mel’s. Where are we going to park when you close the garages and build housing on the lots? 

If people cannot park, they will not come. The result will be decreased sales taxes and decreased property value, as stores move away. You will ruin what you have accomplished. 

Already passed are school district and library bonds, which will soon be adding another $500 to the average parcel owner's tax bill. On top of this, the City is issuing Certificates of Participation without asking for voter approval, for $28 million to purchase and rehab 1947 Center Street. This debt will also be passed along to parcel owners. 

Total proposed tax increases are now approaching $1000 apiece for the average home owner. Increases will be larger for large homes and for apartment buildings. There will be unpleasant consequences for many. There will be many property sales and a forced change over in population. This is what tax increases have always done. Taxpayers are not going to like this. 

Despite the city’s blatant politics in calling this a FIRE PROTECTION TAX, it seems most likely that the citizens will vote down the tax, and maybe, in the next election, vote out Council members. In the last election the citizens voted DOWN 75% s of the tax increases.  

Over the past decade Berkeley has off loaded general fund taxes on the public six times as special taxes: sewer, library etc. This is about $50 million a year now in extra taxes.  

Berkeley has the highest taxes in the state. This is not a secret. See data attached re a few similar sized cities. These cities have not had to raise taxes this year. What is the matter with Berkeley? 

These taxes are caused by a series of City Councils wanting to help everyone and deny no one. 

In the very same agenda as this tax is a list of nearly one million dollars of expenses. There are no alternatives. There is no cost benefit analysis. Any family or business that ran like this would rapidly fail. So will the city. A Council that is on the ball would JUST SAY NO! 

If you pass this tax proposal now, the City will just keeping eating at the public trough, getting fatter and fatter until it will burst when the citizens turn down the tax. Bankruptcy is on the horizon.  

 

Mr. Kamlarz is a very able man and he certainly knows where the dollars are hidden. Why doesn’t the City Council direct him to balance the budget and report back in a couple of weeks without a tax increase. He can do it and he can do it without cutting the cops and firemen. He can do it by either reopening the MOU or laying off people. 

Items that the casual observer has noted.  

• There are 250 people working in a city hall that used to hold 400. The city has purchased (on time) a $28 million building for the overflow. Why not cut staff, compress space, and get everyone back under one roof. 

• Berkeley is no bigger now that it was 20 years ago. Why does the bureaucracy need to expand—aahh, the extra programs added by Council after Council. Time to cut back, folks. 

• The Housing Dept. has 54 employees and a budget of $15,000,000. This in a town with a housing surplus. They have identified $33,000 in savings for next year according to the budget. I’ll bet Mr. Kamlarz can add a couple of zeros to that number. Who is kidding who here? 

• Prior to the last election the Council approved a pay and pension package rivaled in America only by Congress. It was clear at that time that this was going to cause severe future problems. Perhaps it would be a help for the city to go bankrupt so that a judge can abrogate this ill considered action. I wonder how many of Berkeley’s citizens have such high pay and benefits. One could re-staff city hall with intelligent motivated out of work Berkeleyans at half the current cost.  

• While Berkeley is handing out 8% increases, San Francisco's employees agreed to a 7.5% wage cut. The State of California negotiated a two-year wage freeze with its largest union, and a similar two-year wage freeze and moratorium on step increases was accepted by San Francisco Community College instructors. A two-year wage freeze would go a long way to solving Berkeley’s budget crisis 

• Every neighborhood organization with which I have checked is opposing this new tax. Hard to win an election if the citizens don’t want the tax. 

 

The Council can show that it cares about this city by 

• Voting not to put this tax on the ballot. 

• Start efficiently managing the city.  

• Stop fooling with a pie in the sky taxes and other destructive ideas like unneeded housing and eliminating needed parking. 

 

 

George Oram, Chair, Berkeley Can do Better, Homeowner, Parent, Commercial Tenant Businessman and Employer of over 30 people.