Here is the notice from the LWV Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville:
The
League of Women Voters of Berkeley, Albany and Emeryville urges citizens to
support Ballot Measures U & V; please vote YES on both when you cast your
ballot.
Measure
U will enable Emeryville to become a charter city for the limited purpose of
being able to create and collect a property transfer tax, thus gaining more
control over the income of the City. Measure V would create the local
property transfer tax itself. The rate would be $12 for each $1,000 of
sale value.
The
income from the new property transfer tax would begin to replace the funding
lost to the City when the State dissolved all redevelopment programs.
Emeryville lost $30 million, half of its annual budget.
Since
the income will depend on the number and value of property sales in future
years, the income cannot be predicted. In 2013 Emeryville collected
$130,000 in property transfer tax revenue. If a local transfer tax had been in
force at the $12/$1,000 rate, the City would have received $2.85 million.
Eighty-five percent of this would have come from sales of commercial
properties. The proposed Emeryville rate is lower than the $15/$1,000 rate
charged by neighboring cities Berkeley and Oakland.
The
tax would be spent in the City where your homes and buildings are
located. It would help keep City services running well, maintain parks
and much more—thus maintaining and enhancing the value of the individual
properties that are bought and sold.
For
more information on these taxes, you can download a copy of our Pros & Cons on the Emeryville measures here(http://league.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Emeryville-2014-Ballot-Measures.pdf).
You can read the measures themselves and more about these measures at www.SmartVoter.org.
You can download copies of all League Pros and Cons on
local and state ballot measures from our website at www.lwvbae.org.
Please
make sure you are registered before Oct. 20 and vote in the November 4, 2014
election. You can register on line athttp://registertovote.ca.gov/
We
urge you to vote Yes on Emeryville’s ballot measures U & V.
Nice post! We're getting bombarded with mail telling us to vote no on U and V. That's partly expected--the old knee-jerk reaction against any kind of tax.
ReplyDeleteBut why are the big backers of the "Vote No" campaign, the National Assn of Realtors and California Assn of Realtors, being so short-sighted here? They want us to turn our backs on maintaining infrastructure--which has been paid for by substantial past investments. And they want us to turn our backs on future improvements as well, at a time when our schools and streets, among other needs, require more investment.
If the Realtor groups got their way, how would they deal with the crumbling real estate values that would follow from our crumbling budgets?
With a round of tax cuts?
DeleteHi Will, for the answer to your question, please read Mayor Asher's blog here: http://jacasher.com
DeleteToday's Center for Responsive Politics www.OpenSecrets.org newsletter has a piece about the National Association of Realtors who are the only funders (85K!) of No on U & V. Check out the article here: http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/10/lobbying-giants-extend-spending-lead/?utm_source=CRP+Mail+List&utm_campaign=faa262454e-Newsletter_10_23_1410_23_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9df8578d78-faa262454e-210745625
ReplyDelete