NFIB and Amendment One

[Don]

This is more than local but not quite national so I posted it here.

NFIB Members Reject Amendment One Concept

As the total state debt continues to mount even higher, small business owners are worried that tax increases will become necessary to avoid the mounting debt.

Taxpayers and voters will be given an opportunity in November to address the issue of tax increment financing (also known as self financing bonds).

After voters soundly defeated this scheme twice before (in 1982 and 1993), proponents recognize that their only chance to sell the proposal is to couch it under a new marketing term - Amendment One.

This is the same old program, which would give local governments the authority to spend taxpayer dollars without voter approval to subsidize large businesses, under the guise of economic development. Clearly, local governments know that they can't sell these projects to voters on their merits, so they want to bypass taxpayer consideration all together.

Amendment One is simply another way to raise government debt without specific voter approval, and your property taxes will be the tool. But there is still time to make your voice heard - Vote NO on Amendment One.

[johnb]

....to think....you were able to post that message with government funding Don....

Hold on...we need to get a ruling from Stan as to whether or not you are a special interest out to deprive the rest of us of our right to decide the Amendment 1 matter Don....

...Stan?

[Cathy]

Check this out!

This is great, I thank the person who sent it in.

----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Moore 3497144
To: No Amendment One
Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2004 4:49 PM
Subject: Amendment One Video Link


Here's a very interesting Amendment One video link:

http://www.nubbinridge.com/starnews/masterstate.wmv

A high-speed connection is recommended for streaming, download is 8.5 MB

Requires Windows Media Player

Enjoy!

[Cathy]

Garden Grove Neighbors Triumph


June 30 , 2002

By Steven Greenhut
The Orange County Register


Listening to the parade of residents imploring the Garden Grove City Council on Tuesday night to spare their homes from the redevelopment wrecking ball, I was struck by a short and simple speech given in Spanish by an elderly woman. I don't speak Spanish, but I understood the two words she said repeatedly - "casa" and "familia."

That's what the redevelopment battle in Garden Grove was all about - home and family. It's what counts in any language and any culture. And it's why about 800 residents, many carrying signs, packed the council meeting, and why for hour after hour, one resident after another stepped up to the microphone and explained why the city should scrap its plan to turn their neighborhood into a theme park.

Regular folks, from varying ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, clearly and calmly explained why in America people should have the right to live their lives and raise their families on their own property. They talked about the pride they took in their properties, and disputed the bogus portrait of blight painted by the Urban Futures consultants paid to justify the city's proposed project.

They asked for nothing more than to be left alone - to have their homes kept out of a grandiose big-government plan to take their properties by force and market them to an out-of-town developer, as a means to generate additional tax revenue for the city.

The simple wisdom portrayed by residents contrasted sharply with the attitudes of the stone-faced bureaucrats and consultants, who seemed annoyed that anyone would question the city's plan.

The city's presentation, by Community Development Director Matt Fertal, was as disingenuous as the promotional videotape the city had members of the police department deliver to affected residents in the days prior to the meeting.

The city's basic argument: Garden Grove needs centrally planned redevelopment plans to lure new tax-generating hotels and businesses to the city. The videotape even featured previously displaced city residents who literally thanked God for having had their home taken.

Garden Grove residents, including many who didn't live in the targeted redevelopment area, didn't buy this crude propaganda attempt. The few people who did support the city's plan tended to be those with financial interests in redevelopment.

Well-dressed hotel operators who receive subsidies from the city praised the plan on Tuesday night. So did Laura Archuleta, president of Irvine-based Jamboree Housing. Her testimony epitomized the absurdity of the redevelopment process. Redevelopment earmarks 20 percent of tax-increment funds to "affordable" housing, so plans such as the city's are good for lower-income residents who need homes, she said.

In other words, Archuleta was backing a plan that would throw thousands of real people out of their affordable, non-subsidized homes so that government funds could be diverted to her company to develop subsidized affordable homes for other people.

Insane.

The firefighters also took a similarly self-interested stance. As people entered the meeting hall, the union handed out letters praising the city government for its foresight and planning. Union officials said the association was neutral, but praised the council for making "hard choices." I wonder what union members would say if the "hard choice" involved their home, neighborhood or family.

To the firefighters, as to the consultants, it's all about cash. If redevelopment assures that they have plenty of money or lucrative contracts, then they're all for it - regardless of the impact on other people's homes and livelihoods.

Fortunately, this latest story of redevelopment abuse is ending on a happy note. The efforts of Manny Ballestero, the Santa Ana school teacher who organized his neighbors to oppose the plan, paid off. As he pledged at the meeting, "We'll fight you until hell freezes over, and then we'll fight you on the ice."

The crowd was ready to fight, but then something unusual happened. The council - Mayor Bruce Broadwater, Mark Rosen, Mark Leyes, Bill Dalton and Van Tran - decided to oppose a staff-driven plan that everyone could see was ridiculous. As Leyes said after voting to remove the houses from the targeted area, "We've moved a long way tonight toward doing the right thing."

Rather than act like a rubber stamp for the city staff, the council said, OK, this is an overreach. Each council member defended the city's redevelopment programs in general, but said there was no need to demolish single-family tracts. Perhaps they should have done the right thing earlier, and perhaps they were only responding to public pressure.

But they did the right thing in the end. Even Mayor Bruce "Bulldozer" Broadwater gregariously joined his fellow council members in recommending that most tracts be taken out of the expanded redevelopment area. And, in fairness, the Bulldozer treated upset residents throughout the night with decency and good humor - a far cry from the Cypress City Council, which imperiously maligned church supporters who spoke at a recent meeting to defend their property from eminent domain.

As an aside, notice that the organizing efforts here were purely grassroots. Those self-styled Latino activists who always are grabbing headlines crying "racism" were nowhere to be found when thousands of residents, a large proportion of them Latino, were about to be thrown out of their homes.

Those "for the working guy" Democratic politicians who represent the area didn't lift a finger to help, either. Assemblyman Lou Correa was noncommittal. State Sen. Joe Dunn met with the group, and expressed concern about the redevelopment plan, but he didn't do anything that mattered. U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez wouldn't meet personally with the residents. These snubs weren't lost on Ballestero and others.

Anyway, the residents can be proud they won the battle entirely on their own. They saved their homes from a city staff that treated their properties like little pieces on a monopoly board, to be pushed aside without thought to the hardships - not to mention rights - involved.

Of course, now what's needed is a change in the state's redevelopment law so that this council or future councils - or councils in other cities - cannot so easily use eminent domain to shift properties from one set of private owners to another. If you can't understand why current redevelopment practices are so wrong, then think back to the Spanish-speaking woman's points.

What if it were your casa or your familia?


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To reach columnist Steven Greenhut, call (714) 796-7823 or e-mail him at sgreenhut@ocregister.com.