This past week, Q-line asked:
Now that the SMMUSD’s parcel tax Measure A appears to be headed for defeat, district officials are considering their options, which include another funding measure. Do you think the district should consider floating another parcel tax, and why?
Here are your responses:
“District officials seem like slow learners to me.”
“No, I do not think we should put another measure on the ballot, at least this November. It just costs too much money. The city doesn’t have the money to waste on that. We need to reform our schools. We need to maybe charge students who do not live in Santa Monica who want to come to school here the $198 each parcel would have been charged. And if we do want another one, let’s do it the fair way and, instead of the $198 per parcel, let’s do maybe $198 per apartment or per store. Just like we have an apartment building like mine with 10 apartments, it will be $198 divided by 10 or times 10, but if you have a big apartment like Santa Monica Shores where these people are spending thousands of dollars on a month’s rent anyway, what’s another couple dollars going to be, and it’ll raise a lot more money. Santa Monica Place will have a lot more stores, and it will raise a lot more money. Let’s just make it much fairer and raise a lot more money.”
“No, I don’t think the district should consider floating another parcel tax. With all the money they raised to make sure people were aware of the first one, they could have donated that to schools instead of having the parcel tax in the first place.”
“What part of no do they not understand regarding Measure A?”
“No, I don’t think they should, and that’s just my answer.”
“It’s pathetic that the school district’s first thought is how to quickly get another regressive parcel tax measure on the ballot. Did they not get the message that the tax payers want them to reorder their own operations?”
“No more parcel taxes. Cut the deadwood and the fat and live within your means.”
“Please, read my lips: No more taxes. Especially taxes based on footings of subterfuge and fraudulent improprieties. A tax that allows senior citizen home and estate owners to be exempt while charging senior citizen apartment renters does not sit well with me, nor a tax that considers all parcel sizes to be equal, contrary to other forms of property tax collections. I am tempted to hire Robin Hood and his Merry Men, including Friar Tuck and Lady Marian, to come to Santa Monica and speak strongly to the council and school board.”
“I believe that we property owners have been taxed enough. I think money could be gotten by reducing the salaries of people like Mr. Rod Gould, the city manager. The City Council is misguided in things such as high salaries for the best talents. When have we seen the best talents? Certainly not in our dear, departed city manager, Lamont Ewell. So, why don’t we consider that. Let the property owner get a little relief.”
“The district should not ask for another parcel tax. They should instead have the 64 percent that approved that last one just hand over the $198 to the district with instructions on how they want it used. The 30 percent that did not approve should be left alone.”
“The taxpayers took a $300,000 hit because the school board thought they could better con the lemmings with a mail-in vote now than in a real election later. Even Helen Keller could see the fiscal incompetence of your school board. These morons have sandbagged us with this mess, and you still trust them to correct it. Another tax is fiscally and depressingly unsound, but in the rear-end kissing world of schooling, it remains sadly the only hope of dimwits, carpet baggers and charlatans who infest education.”
“Oh heavens no, I don’t want to do another parcel tax. Everybody had their chance before, but these, shall we say, noodle-head administrators take all the money. So no, I don’t want a parcel tax. I happen to be an ex-landlord in this city.”
