Divided Council Gives In to Son of Measure Y

On a 6-2 vote, the city council on July 15 gave in to the mayor's demand that Oakland residents pay another big parcel tax if they want more police. The Son of Measure Y tax proposal, rising to $267 per home per year, will be on the November ballot.

Give us $267 a year – before we clean up City Hall

Councilmembers De La Fuente and Brooks refused to participate in this political fraud. De La Fuente pledged to campaign against Son of Measure Y.

Councilmembers Brunner and Reid made it clear that Son of Measure Y is extortion. Their chant was, let the voters decide. Sounds democratic, doesn't it? But the councilmembers went on to reveal what it means: if voters defeat this tax increase, then it shows voters do not really want more police. These councilmembers simply refuse to recognize that the first priority of city government must be an adequate police force. City Hall needs to go over its waste, corruption, and misdirected spending before it holds up homeowners for $267 a year.

Councilmember Kernighan came up with a clever trick claiming to "guarantee" that taxes would be collected only if existing police staffing met a minimum of 803 police. Not true. Her language specifies that if voters do not renew Measure Y when it sunsets in a few years, the minimum drops down to 740. In effect, Son of Measure Y would replace its parent Measure Y without meeting the claimed "guarantee" of 908 total.

The council then spent more than half an hour trying to figure out the exact weasel words for the guaranteed minimum.

Quan, echoed by Nadel, claimed, "Yes, I think that there is some waste and inefficiency [in the City's billion-dollar budget], but there's not $40 million worth of it." (KGO, July 16, 2008) They really mean, we feel your pain but don't touch our priorities, which are more important than an adequate police force.

Son of Measure Y is a fraud from the same characters who brought you Measure Y. After all the scandal, corruption, and illegality that have come to light in the past few months, it's up to City Hall to show it is trustworthy, to show that it can do something about peaceful neighborhoods before asking voters for more money.