Vote "No" on Prop R

January 25, 2008

Dear Editor,

Santa Monica School District supporters spend God knows how much money on toll-free information hot lines and websites manned by Pro Proposition R staffers, whose idea of information is that they "don't know where the money is going to go."

If you ask them a bona fide Proposition R question, such as how much money classrooms will get from the new parcel school tax, they're useless. I guess for parcel tax guidance, you want to look to big business. Santa Monica businesses never pay a nickel in parcel taxes according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer organization that also never pays a nickel in parcel taxes.

Soon we will have an opportunity to express our rage over never-ending hikes in Santa Monica school spending when we go the ballot boxes. Your votes count, as a parcel tax requires a 2/3 vote. If property owners unite, we can defeat this tax grab. A re-worked Proposition R may get a second shot at the following election if current Proposition R fails this election.

The failure of R will trigger contingency plans, which themselves will pump up school district spending far faster than inflation. Nonetheless, a "no" vote on Proposition R is useful, if only to be on record, for property owners to send the school bureaucrats a message.

The Santa Monica school board hopes to boost spending about eight percent, or more than double the inflation rate. Stopgap funding has not in the past made its way down to the classroom nor has the need for additional funding actually slowed Santa Monica school spending growth. All it's done is to inflate the Santa Monica school budget.

Only spending limits can hold down additional parcel taxes, but the politicians on the school board in Santa Monica won't impose them lest they anger the education cartel, which supports them generously.

So the taxpayers are once again left holding the bag. Not much can be done about that, but voters don't need to sanctify such misconduct by passing Proposition R.

And that is all I have to say.

Thomas Fakehany