Dellums' Rhetoric Boils Down to Tax Increase

For all the inspiring speeches by Oakland mayor Ron Dellums, the practical impact comes down to an old scam practiced by the city council. Next year the mayor will try to push through an increase in the Landscape and Lighting Assessment (LLAD) paid by homeowners and other property owners.

Releasing his first proposed City budgdet, Dellums wrote: "Finally, it is important to note that it was only possible to cover the Fiscal Year 2007/08 $3.5 million shortfall in the LLAD through the use of one-time revenues and by fund reallocations. This will not be possible in FY08/09 ... There seems to be little choice but to go back to the LLAD voters for an increased LLAD assessment." (Mayor's transmittal letter for 2007-09 budget, p. 6; emphasis added)

Just like the councilmembers, Dellums writes of a "shortfall" in the LLAD fund. There is no shortfall. It's simply a matter of priorities. No law says that street lights, park maintenance, and tree trimming must be fully covered by the special LLAD assessment on your property tax bill. The general fund, financed by your basic property taxes and several other sources, can be used for these services, too. Such money was the funding for parks before there was a LLAD tax, which only started in 1989.

The city council, now joined by the mayor, much prefers that voters pay one special assessment after another for basic services. Why? Because that frees up general fund and other money for political purposes.

For example, last December the council took nearly half a million dollars to give itself four more staff bureaucrats. Or again, the City has a budget director, Jim Smith, Jr., but the new mayor needed his own budget chief, Dan Lindheim. Why does the City payroll have two budget heads? Apparently, because politics are so twisted up in Oakland that the mayor cannot get what he wants from the head of the budget office – a situation for which we pay while we get no extra service on the ground.

The mayor also fails to look at the bloodsucking by Redevelopment districts. By law they put a cap on property tax money that go to the general fund for services. Instead, tax money above a baseline year's take goes into the Redevelopment fund, where it is used to subsidize residential housing developers. ORPN calls for a rollback of redevelopment districts.

Much of the LLAD tax increase that the mayor wants next year will not be used for street lights, parks, and trees. Instead, it will go into the general fund for other uses. That is the real meaning of relieving a phony "shortfall."

Oakland voters are familiar with bait-and-switch deals. The city council sold Measure Y taxes in 2004 with a firm commitment to provide at least 802 police. Furthermore, the politicians insisted they would obey a provision that Measure Y money could be spent only to add police to a baseline of 739 officers; otherwise, none of the Measure Y money could be collected, let alone spent.

Instead, Oakland has had fewer than 739 officers ever since Measure Y passed. Nonetheless, the City is spending Measure Y money, both to replace the general fund for some police costs and especially to shovel millions of dollars in grants to social agencies whose managers are barely supervised, out of control, and even guilty of embezzlement.

If the City implements Measure Y with such fraud, how do they expect voters to approve a LLAD increase that will divert millions away from the declared lighting and park services?

Property owners must approve an increase in the LLAD tax. However, big property owners get to cast more votes. When the mayor's budget chief Dan Lindheim revealed that the City will go for an increase in 2008, he admitted that City officials, campaigning as government officials for a tax increase, will concentrate on the Port of Oakland and Oakland Unified School District. (San Francisco Chronicle web report, May 3, 2007)

Oakland faces the prospect that most property owners will vote down a LLAD tax increase as they did last year, but the increase might go into effect because of a shady deal with the school district, for example. Is this the kind of democracy that Dellums learned in his decades in Congress?

Why should a school district in receivership pay more for a LLAD tax when every dollar is precious? Will the City threaten to turn off street lights in front of neighborhood schools? Meanwhile, the district's own custodial crews maintain school grounds.

Oakland wastes far too much money on subsidies for favored developers, on political grants to certain social agencies, and on bloated ranks of bureaucrats. No wonder there are not enough men and women providing the basic services expected of any city. A real shake-'em-up mayor would change that.

Everyone enjoys a good speech, and mayor Dellums knows how to give one. But when it comes to paying more money for less service, that's an old Oakland scam. Do not expect people to approve so easily.