Editor:
While I supported the Parcel Tax Renewal for the past 30 years, however, this year I am urging my friends to vote "NO" on Measure Y.
My objections to the Measure Y tax are twofold:
First, renters and low income persons such as teachers and already struggling single parents with school age children suffer disproportionately as this tax as well as a separate Rental Tax on each rental unit amounts to double taxation which the landlord most often passes on to the renter. I am a landlord and I would dearly like to keep my low-paid — but precious — Special Ed teacher who commutes to Dublin. I don't want to but I may be forced to ask her move because she can't pay a higher rent and I can't keep absorbing the double taxes!
Secondly, the appalling fiscal irresponsibility of successive city politicos over the past 30 years has made a so-called "TEMPORARY" tax enacted in the early 1980's into a de facto "PERMANENT" tax to which taxpayers are held hostage every 4 years with dire predictions of Armageddon if taxpayers do not capitulate their common sense upon the threat that police, fire and other services will be slashed to the bone! Not only do these threat of drastic cuts in services bear little truth, but the services could easily be maintained on a fiscally sensible level by a new and "NON-RENEWABLE" parcel tax at 50% of the Measure Y level. This middle ground would serve a a "Wake-UP Call" to this and successive city councils. If necessary, a special election could be called at the earliest date.
If Measure Y is defeated (as it should be), I will publicly and financially support a slimmed down parcel tax providing that the politicians grasp the concept that fiscal responsibility s like going to the dentist: "You have to do it on a regular basis, and, yes, sometimes it is painful!" Vote "no" on Measure Y
Norm Hendricks
Piedmont
