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September 12, 2011 – Daily Brief

By Jeff — Jeff Wilson

  • After the City Council meeting tomorrow night, staff will count ballots to determine whether there is a “majority protest” in the matter of forming a new Landscape Maintenance District for Newhall. The Newhall LMD would cover Newhall Avenue SIGNAL
  • Hey not so fast! Our friend Jim Farley, opponent of the open space initiative, and a new blogger named John Newhall, say the ballot is a trick. Essentially the ballot cuts LMD rates for property owners in Valencia and other richer areas, which gives them an incentive to vote for it. Meanwhile property owners in Newhall (whose properties are worth less than Valencia properties) will get stuck with nearly $60 on their property tax, something not mentioned in the Signal article. Farley says we saw this same kind of weighted voting before in the open space instrument. He’s got some creative gangster fiction that steps you through the complex financial maneuvering HERE and here’s John Newhall’s BLOG
  • SCV remembers 9/11 SIGNAL
  • Interesting article on how local government agencies handled security concerns after 9/11 SIGNAL
  • Crime keeps decreasing in the SCV, year after year after year, and 2011 is no different according to Jim Holt at the Signal. With the exception of murders, which were skewed by that murder/suicide in Bridgeport, crime is down 15% over last year and 30% over five years ago. At this rate we’ll be crime free in like 3 years.  SIGNAL
  • Just once I’d like to see the Signal study the amount of murders committed in the SCV vs the number of murderers convicted. From that we should be able to get a nice ratio of how likely you are to be convicted of murder in SCV
  • A Wrong-way DUI driver crashed head-on into another car on Rye Canyon at 3pm on Friday. The wrong-way driver was in critical condition Friday while the driver of the SUV he hit suffered minor injuries. SCVNEWS
  • The Hart District has an interesting freshman mentoring program in which frosh are teamed with seniors who show them the ropes SIGNAL
  • Newhall School District formally kicks off its $60 million Measure E campaign, which is aimed at upgrading school facilities, enhancing classroom technology, and adding science labs. Also they’ll renovate the Newhall Auditorium with the money, if approved by voters in November SIGNAL
  • And on the west side of town, the County held a meeting with residents about the library it wants to build there. The County has slated $13 million to build and residents wanted to know where the library will be built. That’s still under study. A study of library users in Stevenson Ranch found that the two largest patron groups are children and adults in their 30s SIGNAL
  • Jeff Stenroos, the disgraced LAUSD cop who is on trial for faking his own shooting, gets to stay at his Santa Clarita home with pay while he is on trial. PATCH.COM
  • Liberal LA Times columnist George Skelton calls our very own Cameron Smyth “bold’ for being one of only two Republicans to sign off on Gov. Brown’s tax incentive plan. Skelton says their bravery is all the more remarkable now that State Senate Republicans have received their marching orders from the Howard Jarvis taxpayer group: they should vote no on Brown’s proposal. LA TIMES
  • Buck McKeon says that if Congress passes President Obama’s American Jobs Act, it will mean 100,000 soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen could be cut from the US Military. So is Buck McKeon admitting what liberals have said for years- that the military is just more social spending, the biggest example of a federal jobs program? CNBC INTERVIEW
  • Speaking of Buck, he’s delivering a keynote to the American Enterprise Institute right now CSPAN
  • Bossert upset that he was faced with filling out a 9 page form and undergoing a fingerprinting & background check just to volunteer for the choir program at a Junior High in the Hart District. “Shut the front door!” he says, “This is a microcosm of the over regulation that is slowly suffocating our state and national economies.” Hey just a minute- wasn’t there a case a few years ago of a volunteer who was caught red handed with a minor at one area high school? And wasn’t the community just as outraged about the lack of background checks for school volunteers? Oh yeah, the case of Kevin Thomas! WRB
  • Columnist Steve Lunetta has learned to ride a motorcycle. He thinks he enjoys it because he’s politically conservative, but what he doesn’t realize is that motorcyclists share more in common with bicyclists than car drivers, in that we both fear and loathe “cagers,” clueless car drivers. SIGNAL
  • The drought in Texas is incredible and frightening BIG PICTURE

Comments

20 · as published
  1. KellySeptember 12, 2011 at 8:27 am
    Re.Mr.Bossert’s reaction to the screening process for chaperones and drivers for the Hart District, I had a momentary similar reaction to the process for volunteers, in addition to the $100 cost of fingerprints and DMV check, not to mention the time spent doing this. However, I realized, I want the adults who chaperone our children to undergo this screening to be around my kids, especially at out of town competitions etc. Your volunteer screening is good for all the years you have children in the district, you only have to apply once. If you do not want to go through this process, you can be a level 1 volunteer, and help out when district staff is onsite, i.e. work coat check at the dances, help with make up for talent shows, etc, just no driving, chaperoning, or riding on the school bus due to liability issues for both the school and parent volunteer. I think I stimulated the economy with having the services of the District fingerprinter coordinator, a DOJ fingerprint technician to hand read my non scannable digits, and the DMV folks to provide my driving record. Also, when we travel to competitions, we spend $$ on gas, food, and lodging. I respect Mr.Bossert’s opinion which is shared by many parents, but I also feel fortunate to be able to participate in a time which goes by all too quickly. Luckily, there are opporunities to volunteer at a level which both the district, the community, and the parent feel comfortable with.
  2. MikeSeptember 12, 2011 at 8:37 am
    Of those who ride the road, I’d say motorcyclists – who are 37 times more likely to die on a per-mile basis – are the “clueless” group. On the freeway, cages FTW.
  3. Alan FerdmanSeptember 13, 2011 at 12:39 pm
    Like the saying goes: If I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand!
  4. SFC PerezSeptember 12, 2011 at 9:02 am
    How many are hit because of lane splitting?
  5. Curious John NewhallSeptember 12, 2011 at 10:10 am
    I just posted this in the Signal. I apologize for the repetition but I just want people to understand. “There is much more to this that meets the eye, and the hubris of the City has reached a new level. First, it is just about impossible for this thing to get voted down. Most people will vote YES to save a few dollars, not knowing that their vote will increase taxes on their neighbors. So, yeses do not mean the same thing for are parcels. Both the cover letters and the ballots were different,—variations abounded and for me it is comprehensible that a single vote can have so many outcomes and result in something called an election. Then the measure does several things, that should be, in my mind done by separate elections and votes: It annexes in new areas to the plan and provides a tax never collected before. It moves parcels out of one zone into another—making minor correction here and there, that is organizational changes. It makes corrections of just a few dollars to many parcels that apparently were “overpaying”. But oddly, the weighted value of the corrections both encourage people to vote YES, but creates a math that should make it impossible for a NO vote to win. Even with everyone who got a ballot voting NO to prevent a new tax on their parcel, it is unlikely that they could win. There is $10 to $20 to be saved by too many who will vote YES. And the “weight” of those YES votes are sometimes ten time heavier than a NO. Then oddly enough, not everyone in the City votes on this one, only those effected by the City’s arbitrary assemble of zones within this District. Other elections are likely, with other parcels to be brought in probably using that special math again. See http://santaclaritaassessmentballot.blogspot.com/ for more details
  6. spineflower2September 12, 2011 at 11:01 am
    Looks like the City has institutionalized “EnderMath.”
  7. nficSeptember 12, 2011 at 11:43 am
    Take a look at the reduction for Centre Point- Larry Rassmussen and the Hart District make out. This vote is a real set up. If the other districts have been overpaying, the City should just be reducing their rate, not tying it into a vote to increase the size and area covered by LMD’s. This is a manipulative attempt to overcome the Whites Canyon rejection of an LMD for street beautification.
  8. Phil EllisSeptember 12, 2011 at 2:12 pm
    Isn’t the Hart District exempt?
  9. nficSeptember 12, 2011 at 7:43 pm
    Not the Facilities Foundation
  10. ToddSeptember 12, 2011 at 2:53 pm
    Why do so many people wear tin-foil hats in this damn town. Seriously, people, why don’t some of you take time to kick back, relax and try to find the good things in life. Why must you fret so much over rather insignificant issues? You really want to make a gigantic federal case over tens of dollars on your property tax? Time to move out into the sticks where government can’t bother you.
  11. MikeSeptember 12, 2011 at 3:06 pm
    +1
  12. IHeartSCVSeptember 12, 2011 at 3:16 pm
    You really nailed it, Todd–not nearly enough apathy in Santa Clarita. Sure, active civic interest sometimes verges on paranoia, but thank goodness for the people who read through the agendas with a critical eye. Nothing gets discussed or scrutinized otherwise.
  13. Curious John NewallSeptember 12, 2011 at 3:35 pm
    Okay. Fine. In this last tax year how much was collected and went to the City from the parcels that received ballots? If this is passed, how much will then be collected from those parcels and go to the City? How many parcels pay into more than one Zone? What will be the City’s net gain in revenue from this? Is $10.00 too much for the City to pay for a YES vote, when the CPI increase will blow that away by 3 to 4 times in the first year? Find someone in City Hall who will answer these questions. If they do, ask for the proof to be put online. Todd, so asking questions about our taxes is done only by people who wear tin hats and have too much free time?
  14. Jim FarleySeptember 12, 2011 at 5:27 pm
    Todd, if you think this is an issue over “tens of dollars” you miss the whole point. This is an issue of the city finding a way to raise over $900,000 in revenue for landscape maintenance by setting up a ballot system that almost assures it will pass by pitting some citizens unknowingly against others. You accept that. Good for you. Keep taking it. I’m sure you are including me as one wearing the “tin hat with nothing better to do”. You don’t know me and what motivates me. I work hard at a career, maintain a household, and still have time to stop and smell the roses. When I choose to take up a cause to keep our city honest it indeed cuts into the time above and at times I stay up much later than I should. I’d rather be in the fight trying to make a difference than your sorry a__ sitting it out on the sidelines pointing out how foolish you feel the doers are. (A very loose reference to T. Roosevelt’s famous speech at the Sobourn).
  15. ToddSeptember 13, 2011 at 7:50 am
    Would you prefer that our medians are bare? I thought so many of you wanted NOT to be the San Fernando Valley…. Let the streets go bare then I say. Eyesores for everyone!!!!!!
  16. MikeSeptember 13, 2011 at 8:07 am
    Todd, I think our friends are waiting on market-based solutions for median beautification.
  17. Curious John NewhallSeptember 13, 2011 at 8:58 am
    No. They are waiting for transparency in local government. Straw man arguments presented by City psychophants are not substitutes. It is time that we deal with ideas that are backup-ed by information and solutions to problems. There is nothing wrong with people knowing how much their taxes are and what they are going for.
  18. Lori RivasSeptember 12, 2011 at 6:06 pm
    I am not a numbers person, but the thing that gets me with this vote is the differing ballots. I would much rather thatthe City laid it out all straight, gave everyone the same ballot. Something like, “voting ‘yes’ means neighborhood A will receive a $10 reduction, while neighborhood B will pay $60, as a new tax.” What are the legal allowances for a weighted vote? I have heard it mentioned in several instances, but do not understand how such a thing can work? Also, does this not maybe hint at gentrification? Charge new taxes on the lower income neighborhoods?
  19. Jim FarleySeptember 12, 2011 at 7:14 pm
    You are right on that the ballot should have presented the big picture as far as which zones pay more and which ones pay less. I’ve been through it several times and there is no mention of that. When I opened my ballot for Northbridge I first assumed everyone was getting a small increase as costs must have gone down and was ready to vote ‘yes’. Something told me to look further. On a property tax assessment vote for an assessment that provides a “special benefit” to the property, as landscaping clearly does, each vote is properly weighted as the amount the assessment will be. What stinks here is that the district is divided into several zones with some going up and some going down. The city has found away to give the heaviest weighted votes a decrease in order to pass a new tax on others. If it passes the new payers will be holding the burden of paying $900,000+ to the city.
  20. Timothy Myers SRSeptember 13, 2011 at 10:33 am
    This is not an atypical practice of the center-right; raising revenue by actually raising net dollars from the folks you suspect are not your natural constituency. Take Herman Cain’s 9 9 9 plan which would take the working poor from effectively getting refunds from the federal income tax system to paying about 16-18% of their income in various taxes; an astounding increase. What really bugs me if the fact that City staff have actually brainwashed themselves into thinking this is very fair, and will not even admit off the record they are being sly.
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