The Lake Forest-based Orange County Taxpayers Association, an advocate for tax payers on public policy issues, has taken the following positions on issues on California’s June 8 primary ballot, including a controversial zoning measure before Mission Viejo voters:
Oppose: Mission Viejo Measure D, Right to Vote Amendment
Mission Viejo’s Measure D would require additional hearings, City Council review and possible citywide votes before land use zoning in the city could be changed.
Fiscal impact: increased costs to applicants because of more stringent noticing requirements and the expense of conducting citywide elections.
Our analysis: Measure D is the latest of many attacks on private property rights dating back to the adoption of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution in 1791. It would invoke what Lord John Emerich Edward Acton called “the tyranny of the majority” to enable voters to veto any land use amendment that the people’s own elected representatives might find beneficial to the community or to a property owner.
Measure D would be mob rule by plebiscite: smugly gratifying to no-growth voters in the anonymity of voting booths, but seriously harmful to property owners who seek land use amendments.
Support: Proposition 13, Seismic Retrofitting Amendment
1978’s Proposition 13 amended the California Constitution to limit ad valorem taxes on newly constructed real property to 1% of the full cash value of the property. 2010’s Proposition 13 would prohibit assessors from re-assessing construction on existing buildings when the purpose of the construction is to retrofit the buildings to meet seismic safety ordinances.
It would delete the existing exclusion for structures made of unreinforced masonry bearing walls, and delete the existing authority of the Legislature to exclude certain seismic retrofitting improvements utilizing earthquake hazard mitigation technologies.
Our analysis is that it is reasonable to re-assess property that is upgraded only for cosmetic purposes. For example, a hotel that is modernized and redecorated is more valuable than it was before the renovation. It should be re-assessed upward.
On the other hand, a hotel that has been retrofitted for seismic safety (at the command of government) may be no more attractive to customers, the owner will have undergone considerable expense, and the owner may not realize more revenue from the upgrade. It would be unfair to re-assess such a property.
Knowing that seismic retrofitting would result in re-assessment would be a strong disincentive to comply with seismic safety ordinances.
Oppose: Proposition 14 “Top Two” Primary Election
Proposition 14 would create a “top two” primary election for state and congressional offices. There would be one primary election ballot, listing all candidates of all parties and all independents. Candidates would have the option of indicating their political parties, if any. A voter could vote for any candidate, regardless of the party affiliation of the voter or the candidate. There is no provision for write-in votes. Only the two candidates with the highest number of votes in the primary election, regardless of party, would advance to the general election.
Fiscal Impact: no significant direct cost, but possibly significant “indirect” costs.
Our analysis: Proposition 14 is intended to elect “moderate” candidates, willing to compromise to pass budgets and raise taxes. Is that really a good thing? Even if it is, it’s a task best left to the Redistricting Commission, which will do away with gerrymandered “safe” districts for candidates in 2011.
The legislative analyst says Proposition 14 would result in elected officials who would “make different decisions about spending and revenues than under current law. These indirect fiscal costs are unknown and impossible to estimate.”
OCTax thinks the costs would be higher taxes and more government. In fact, that’s what Proposition 14 was designed to do when it was hatched as one of several compromises crafted to put last year’s Proposition 1A on the ballot.
Proposition 14 would disfranchise small-party candidates by making it difficult for them to advance to the general election. It would rob small party and independent voters of their valuable roles as “spoilers” in elections where major party candidates ignore their constituents’ wishes. But aren’t small parties irrelevant? No. In 1998, Minnesota’s Jesse Ventura (Reform Party) got only 3% of the primary vote, but won the state’s general election for governor. Proposition 14 also would eliminate write-in votes. Think write-in voters can’t win? In 1982 Ron Packard was elected to Congress by write-ins. He served South Orange County admirably for 18 years.
Oppose: Proposition 16, Taxpayers’ Right to Vote Act
Proposition 16 would give electricity ratepayers and taxpayers the right to vote on any local government proposal to use public financing to start or expand electricity delivery to a new area or customers, or to become an aggregate electricity provider that buys electricity from a utility. A two-thirds vote of voters in the served territory would be required to approve such a project.
Our analysis: OCTax believes that most public services can be provided cheapest and best by private vendors, operating under competitively bid contracts and licenses provided by governments.
Despite our preference for privately funded and operated utilities, OCTax thinks Proposition 16 is heavy-handed, it punishes businesses and homeowners, and it uses an unwise electoral tactic.
Annexations are undertaken for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with who provides the electricity. Adding an election on electricity service (with a voter approval requirement higher than that required to approve the annexation itself) would increase costly bureaucratic involvement.
The measure would require almost every new electricity connection within a municipal utility’s existing territory to be subject to a vote of the people therein. That’s punishing to prospective businesses, homebuilders and homebuyers. It’s hard to get a simple majority, let alone two-thirds, to approve any construction in this age of Nimbyism. California already has too many taxation and regulatory barriers to earning a living.
Proposition 16 would be a constitutional amendment. Advocates for change, often motivated by self-interest, like to put their proposals into the Constitution because it is difficult to repeal them. (Repealing an article of the Constitution requires a statewide vote of two-thirds of the people.) As a result, California’s bloated Constitution has been amended more than 500 times. Proposition 16 continues that stifling tradition.
Proposition 16 would correct a moderately bad situation with very bad law.
