Placer Sales Tax Hike

Why Not?


On Thursday, November 29, 2007, my nemesis, The Placer Herald, recently did an article that was essentially slanted towards supporting a .50 percent sales tax hike in Placer County, California. It featured Kathy Lund, the City of Rocklin's current mayor, noting that there was a lack of public support due to recent road improvements already accomplished, a slower economy and massive money already used for transportation improvement. According to the article, Lund thinks the Placer County Transportation Planning Agency Funding Strategies Steering Committee (PCTPAFSSC???) should focus on educating the public about the benefits a sales tax raise could bring.

I'll be fare in this article and let her piece be said AGAIN, where as the Herald, only let her piece be said with AS USUAL, no rebuttal. The Herald almost always sides with Placer's socialism and unrestrained development, and therefore with its County Supervisors and city councils. The benefits, as presented by Lund and the Herald would include a widening of the Highway 65, interchange upgrades, diamond lane extensions and mass transit improvements.

According to the article, the PCTPA Director, Celia McAdam, the tax increase would get 60 percent voter support and not the needed 66 percent.

Scott Yuill, the recently elected Rocklin City Council member and local insurance agent, was quoted as saying, "Hopefully people understand that after several years of exhaustive study to find ways to improve and add roads, the sales tax plan surfaces as the most viable."

Here's Why Not?


Both Scott and Kathy are dead wrong AGAIN. Like most Placer County Supervisors and city council members, they are simply apologists for the developers that want wider roads to support the added traffic they plan on bringing to Placer County through increased development. You might as well go up to the developers and just hand them the money to do it themselves. The Placer (Developer) Herald made the issue's downside seem limited to a "lack of public support due to the lack of education of the public." Granted, perhaps the public is totally lazy as a whole and doesn't understand the issues, but that doesn't mean that education about the issues should be "Placer Herald One-Sided."

In reality, the cost would be a new higher sales tax of 7.75 percent and the PROPOSED spending of $1.25 billion of our money, all to help make roads more viable for continued over-development by the County and cities of Lincoln, Rocklin and Roseville, all of which SHOULD have passed the cost onto the developers in the first place and not onto residents already living in the area. Because sales taxes are based on percentages, (and they really are theft based in nature), there is no need to increase them or to increase the immorality of the whole thing. Of course, developers prefer that "we the people" already here foot their bill for them and our illustrious Cities and County went along with the developers who, by no coincidence, also funded their political campaigns with the big seed money. I say, let the incoming crowd pay for the additions to our infrastructure that THEY necessitate. The infrastructure should also be in place PRIOR TO DEVELOPMENT. I think the residents of Lincoln understand exactly what I'm talking about. Their "gung-ho" council built out prior to dealing with Hwy 65 and downtown issues. Hopefully, those council members will find themselves back out on the street soon. (And they should be careful that all the traffic THEY CREATED doesn't run them over, at least politically speaking.)

Local Voters Made 2 Huge Mistakes


The first was to be so uninformed and lazy so as to allow the current city council members and county supervisors to become elected. The second was to let themselves be exploited by the developers that are, for all intent and purpose, the ones that run our local governments in BOTH Placer and Sacramento Counties. Though we and our progeny are bound to pay for those mistakes for years to come, we don't have to dig the hole deeper by reelecting these folks. Voters could demand candidates that are not "on the take" from developers and that are not registered Republicans or Democrats. There is a thing called "Independent" that is represented by the "Decline to State" selection on a voter registration. Voters could drive down to their City Halls and ask to see the 460 statements to discover who's funding candidates. They could look at the meeting minutes on the Internet. Well, they could! Can we expect voters to take a couple of hours a year out of their busy lives to improve local government 100%?

One has only to look at the Clover Valley issue to see how a handful of residents can start to reverse this developer ownership or our local governments. I'm not saying they are in the right or doing things the right way. However, the issue does show how powerful "we the people" can be when we apply a little effort.

Folks are FINALLY so fed up with local government that they will, with campaign money being fairly earned, throw them all out next election. Unfortunately, that will cause the developers to throw even more money at the incumbent campaigns in order to retain power. Will Rocklin residents throw a few bucks towards the challengers? I doubt it. Because Rocklin's average resident would rather roll over and play dead then part with $5 to $10 dollars towards defeating these folks, we will probably continue to have communist developer run local governance. Our incumbents are big spenders and taxers in a slowing economy. Will Placer County's residents get their collective heads out of the sand? I doubt it. In total, they aren't made of the right stuff and won't use the brains God gave them. If they assume someone is an "R," they vote for them with little thought or research. Few bother to go downtown to their City Halls to look up the campaign funding that the Herald never accurately reports on. With some difficulty, they could, if they took a few moments, also look at the County's political contributions on the Internet along with the our local government's meeting minutes. Unfortunately, Placer County residents would rather swim nude under an Alaskan waterfall than become responsible Americans.
There has to be give and take. First, folks have to be awake in order to negotiate their future and start the give and take process. They have to be awake to have better candidates. I can recommend at least one locally owned and operated coffee shop if you need one to get the energy to put forth the effort.

Sierra Roasting Company Located on the corner of Stanford Ranch and Park in the Albertson's Parking Lot. 3051 Stanford Ranch Rd Rocklin, CA 95765 (MAP)

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