City Spends Public Funds Campaigning for Tax Hike

The City of Oakland spent $14,449 of public funds campaigning for a tax increase. The money was expended for brochures inserted into envelopes with the first garbage bill of 2008 for 90,000 Oakland customers.

According to a public letter by mayor Ron Dellums, he will "go back to the LLAD voters for an increased LLAD assessment." (Dellums budget transmittal letter to council, May 3, 2007) Supposedly, the LLAD means a Landscape and Lighting Assessment (LLAD). However, a major portion of the new money would have nothing to do with trees, street lights, or park maintenance.

Instead, millions of dollars would go to the general fund, available to give the mayor a salary increase and add more staff for him and councilmembers. These were the first new appropriations chosen by Dellums and councilmembers when the new mayor took office a year ago.

To inform voters where the money would really go, City Hall should label the tax increase as an assessment for More Executives, Favored Insiders, and Wasteful Bureaucracy.

Instead, the fancy brochure talks about an alleged funding gap between the LLAD revenue and the cost of maintaining trees, lights, and parks. However, there was no LLAD tax before 1989 – and hence no "LLAD funding gap" – yet Oakland still had parks and lighting. No law, no principle of city finance, requires that the regressive LLAD tax must pay for all parks and street lights in order to free up money for councilmembers' subsidies and grants to political allies.

The cost of City staff time devoted to the mailing is additional to the $14,449, which paid contractors for the design and printing of the brochure.

The City stuffed garbage bills with brochures under a municipal contract with Waste Management. Critics of the misrepresented tax increase had no opportunity to present the other side. They could not use Waste Management envelopes to mail an official-looking brochure bearing the Oakland tree logo. Even at bulk rates, postage alone would cost more than $20,000 to match the City's cozy mailing deal with Waste Management. Add the cost of producing a brochure, and City Hall has already outspent opponents by $35,000. Is this democracy?

The brochure is subtitled, "2008 LLAD Report." However, the City did not stuff garbage bills with a report on police services. Nor has the City provided garbage customers with reports on executive salary hikes, mismanagement of vacation leave as documented by the city auditor, and the increase of managers in the library and other City departments while working staff positions are cut. The only reason for a so-called "report" is that City Hall wants to use the LLAD for another bait-and-switch tax increase, and it happens to need approval by a vote of property owners. A mail-in vote would likely be scheduled for May or June.

In 2006 the City tried the same propaganda tactic. Councilmember Jean Quan and her staff were deeply involved in designing and pushing forward the mailer, according to documents obtained by Charles Pine, cofounder of Oakland Residents for Peaceful Neighborhoods. Pine also obtained the financial disclosure on the 2008 brochure.

"I call on the city council to put a stop to these one-sided mailings that campaign with public money for a bait-and-switch tax increase. Or establish fair procedures like a voter's pamphlet that give equal time to critics," said Pine.