BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
Even if you think you’ve moved out of California, you really haven’t escaped.
People who have fled the state are getting letters from the California Franchise Tax Board asking them for documents confirming when they left the state.
The California tax collectors want to see the escapee’s pay stubs from their new employer, employment contracts, a bill from the moving company, and a cancelled check to the movers.
The letters even ask escapees to “provide a brief narrative of the events and circumstances surrounding” their decision to leave the state.
This is California, where you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.
The Cubberley tax measure is dead
Palo Alto City Council tonight is scheduled to talk about its proposed tax measure to fund the renovation of Cubberley Community Center. However, the latest poll shows that a tax to fund those renovations will fail on Election Day.
Council should face reality. Residents are getting clobbered with taxes.
In November, county residents passed a 0.625% sales tax for public hospitals. This coming November, voters throughout the Bay Area will be asked to approve a half-cent sales tax for BART and other mass transit systems. And the Palo Alto school board is considering a special election later this year for a parcel tax that would replace the one that’s expiring.
The research company the city hired to do the polling is recommending that the council put off a vote on the Cubberley tax until 2028.
I think that’s sound advice. Public opinion isn’t going to suddenly swing back in favor of a Cubberley tax by November. The only way that’s going to happen is if there’s grassroots support for such a measure, which doesn’t exist right now.
Huge ‘ask’ from school unions
The Palo Alto school board should be applauded for agreeing to have a public discussion about whether to seek a parcel tax later this year. The district is swimming in money and they shouldn’t ask voters to renew the parcel tax, which is expiring.
The unions obviously see the money is piling up. That’s why the teacher’s union is seeking a 28% increase (when the cost of benefits is part of the equation) and the non-teachers union wants a 47% hike.
Those are big “asks” — especially at a time when the Bay Area inflation rate is at 3%.
Reality check for journos
Budget cuts and layoffs at the Washington Post made the news last week. The best headline I saw on the story was by the Babylon Bee: “Journalists Shocked To Be Laid Off From Obsolete Media Outlet That Loses $100 Million Annually.”
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.
One wonders why council is pushing ahead with the Cubberley tax even though the polling says it will fail. One explanation might be that the council wants the city to reject this so they can wash their hands of Cubberley and let it wait until another generation. When asked about it, they’ll say, “Oh we tried!”
Another explanation is that council refuses to face reality and their continuing insistence on treating us like cash cows while providing no oversight for the City Manager’s grand ambitions.
Instead they rubber stamp risky costly vanity projects like Fiber To The Home that don’t even have a business plan, rehiring the City Manager’s pet retail consultants with no local knowledge who are so clueless they think Stanford Shopping Center is downtown, support taxing suffering downtown merchants to widen downtown sidewalks in repave them in colors like Burlingame’s at a time when PA sales tax revenues htanked by 41% while neighboring communities sales revenue continues to rise.
Also laughable is the Retail Committee’s belief that bars will be PA’s salvation to the 41% decline in sales tax revenue when NATIONAL alcohol consumption is down and our EXISTING restaurants are struggling.
And of course, there’s the never-ending rise in utility rates and their never-ending “sustainability” push for everyone to spend big bucks to go all-electric when the grid is already over-taxed in time for rates and usage to soar as AI data centers suck up more and more power.
But never fear. They’ve cornered the market on virtue-signalling and that vision thing.