New lighting and parks parcel tax on top of LLAD on top of general taxes

City Council's Con Artist Goes After You Again

Councilmember Jean Quan, City Hall's leading promoter of taxes sold with broken promises of basic services, is after your checkbook again.

Quan wants a parcel tax on homes and other property for the alleged purpose of street light and park maintenance. The new tax would be in addition to the Landscape and Lighting Assessment (LLAD) and the general tax revenues already levied for this alleged use. Quan would have the city council put a measure on the ballot for the next election, which may be as soon as May 19.

Since Quan moved to the city council from the school board in 2002 (where she ignored urgent warnings of impending bankruptcy), she has plucked residents' checkbooks again and again. The technique is to promise specific services then makes excuses when the City fails to deliver.

• Quan led the campaign for Measure Y, the infamous police parcel tax, denouncing skeptics and asserting, "This measure brings the total number of police to 802. None of us (councilmembers) would break such an obvious promise." (Remarks by Quan and others are available here) Yet for almost four years Oakland had even fewer police than when Measure Y was written! Quan wailed that it was impossible to recruit in California, to the point that her office denied Los Angeles' success in hiring more police. The City's misuse of Measure Y revenues is so bad that a judge ruled the City must restore several million dollars to the fund.

• Quan led the campaign that passed Measure Q in 2004, more than doubling the library parcel tax. How was the money used? The library director cut working librarian positions while surrounding herself with more high-level staff. More than 85% of the time library facilities are not open in the evening, making it difficult for working people to use the library. Despite the dedicated Measure Q parcel tax, libraries are closed seven Fridays and a Thursday in the first half of 2009 like the rest of the City, because that is how Quan and the rest of City Hall "solved" the budget crisis.

• Quan led a campaign for a new $100 million palace library downtown on earthquake-prone land, leaving pennies for the branch libraries where children and other patrons live. Fortunately, voters turned down Quan's Measure N. Imagine the municipal credit situation today if those bonds had been issued and added to Oakland's debt.

• Quan led two campaigns to increase the Landscape and Lighting Assessment (LLAD), in 2006 and 2008. Property owners were polled on a mail-in ballot. They rejected increases both times, although on the second vote the City stuffed the ballot box and claimed victory, then backed off collecting an increase. The assessment hikes were defeated largely because Quan claimed the assessment would go to parks and lighting, but City staff reports revealed that most of the additional money was for unspecified other uses.

The councilmember learned from her two LLAD defeats. She has decided to lie to a different group of voters in the May 19 election.

Everyone favors well-maintained parks. General fund revenues – derived from the regular property tax, sales taxes, and a host of other taxes called "fees" – should provide basic City services: police, fire, and infrastructure. In Oakland the money is frittered away on political pork, giveaways to insider developers, and grants to a crowd of social program agencies that have little evidence of achieving real improvements for Oakland residents.

Quan calls her proposed new parcel tax a "Lighting, Parks, Trees, Health And Safety Emergency Measure." There is no law compelling a title to be accurate. Historically, Quan's tax measures have been about pork not basic services. Her latest proposal faces stiff requirements before it is worthy of support:

No shell game: Parks are maintained today, as they have been for many years, with a combination of general fund appropriations and the Landscape and Lighting Assessment. Quan's initial document already contains the lie that "Since 2002 the LLAD has not had a balanced budget and has run a deficit." (Feb. 24, 2009 memo to finance committee) The LLAD is not responsible for all park and lighting maintenance, and it is impossible for this fund to run a deficit. The LLAD fund simply has what is collected, period. The practical question is: Are there guarantees that new parcel tax revenues will truly be used for lighting and parks in addition to general fund and LLAD money? Or will the council, as it has done so often, apply the new tax to parks and lighting but also "free up" general funds and divert them to political pork?

Efficiencies: Have the mayor and city council pored through the budget and made significant improvements in efficient use of funds? Have they instilled a real service culture among top managers – instead of department heads congratulating each other with $70 bouquets of flowers? (Grand jury report)

Clean campaign: Has anything been done about Quan's vigorous solicitation of campaign contributions from businesses holding or seeking City contracts? Quan collected almost half her $150,000 war chest for Measure N from such contributors, an obvious conflict of interest.

Published poll report: Typically, the City pays for extensive polling, and then the city council keeps the report under wraps, except that Quan passes it to a campaign committee. In the case of the 2008 LLAD vote, the consultants not only took a poll; they were hired to figure out an illegal strategy to rig the vote and tamper with the balloting. At a minimum, the complete polling report should be published as soon as it comes in.

Last Spring councilmember Quan, head of the council's finance committee, went along with city administrator Deborah Edgerly's raid on reserves to maintain political pork. "The city's $75 million reserve in 2007 wound up being only $10 million in 2008 as [city administrator Deborah] Edgerly and the City Council approved dipping into the reserve to cover revenue shortfalls and expenses." (San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 27, 2008) By summer Edgerly was fired, and by Fall the City was grappling with a deficit of tens of millions of dollars. Finance chair Quan, after participating in irresponsible budgeting, always turns to voters with the cry that she needs more money.

Before residents who are reeling under the global economic depression approve a new tax, Oakland City Hall needs a good deal of cleaning up. If Quan cannot do that, let her hit up Citibank and Goldman Sachs, not Oakland residents.