• When The State Has You Over A Barrel or "Gas Tax Bait & Switch Coming?"

I try to keep my blog topics about Wildomar, and though this isn't exclusively about Wildomar, it certainly affects us since we're all Californians too. 

I was reading in the February Jeffries Journal E-Newsletter. 

Thanks for keeping us informed Mr. Supervisor.

If you're not signed up for it, just go over to his website and do it.

Link to online version of E-Newsletter

This is regarding proposed legislation that would tie gas taxes to low income errr, I mean "affordable" housing targets.

At the same time, if you've been paying attention to the whole SB1 fiasco from last year, when the gas tax was raised by 12 cents a gallon (which was just the low end of how high the new tax can go — that's not counting the Cap and Trade scheme that was extended in 2017), you're probably well aware of that part of it.

Link to Sacbee story on it

According to the E-Newsletter, Assembly Bill 1759 "[H]as been introduced in Sacramento that intends to punish the residents, businesses and elected officials of all those non-compliant cities and counties by withholding the revenues from the recently increased gas taxes."

The E-Newsletter goes on to state: You and I would still have to pay the increased taxes at the pump, and at DMV, but your local city or county would not be given its share to build or repair roads until your city or county is found by a state agency to be in compliance with its state-imposed housing requirements.

The newsletter had previously stated the following: If you ask the experts, California is short about 500,000 homes to meet current and near future demands. 

“Affordable” housing in Southern California is in even shorter supply. 

Now I’m not going to get into the complex and sometimes emotional issue of exactly where and how to build homes and apartments in our own  county, but I am going to ask – What In The Heck Does Building New Affordable Homes And Apartments Have To Do With Our Increased Gas Taxes?  “Nothing” you say?  Wrong.

Here is a link to the actual wording of  AB 1759

Below is the entire E-Newsletter as it was seen on my browser.

=================================

Kevin's Corner

Gas Tax Bait & Switch Coming?

Housing is an incredibly important and complex issue for our state and county. With nearly 40 million of us calling California our home, and nearly 2.4 million calling Riverside County our home - adding new housing for young families, growing families and seniors is always a challenge. And if you ask the experts, California is short about 500,000 homes to meet current and near future demands. “Affordable” housing in Southern California is in even shorter supply. Now I’m not going to get into the complex and sometimes emotional issue of exactly where and how to build homes and apartments in our own  county, but I am going to ask – What In The Heck Does Building New Affordable Homes And Apartments Have To Do With Our Increased Gas Taxes?  “Nothing” you say?  Wrong.

The passage of the increased gas tax and DMV fees (contained in Senate Bill 1) was controversial enough, but now new legislation will be working its way through the California State Legislature that would tie the gas tax to new housing. Every city  and county in our state is required to set aside properly zoned land for new affordable housing. It’s mandatory - period! For a variety of reasons, most every county and city is not able to meet the prescribed housing demands of the state. So a new bill (Assembly Bill 1759) has been introduced in Sacramento that intends to punish the residents, businesses and elected officials of all those noncompliant cities and   counties by withholding the revenues from the recently increased gas taxes.  You and I would still have to pay the increased taxes at the pump and at DMV, but your local city or county would not be given its share to build or repair roads until your city or county is found by a state agency to be in compliance with its state-imposed housing requirements.

The state has many ways to make life difficult for cities and counties, but that is mostly done by mandating certain programs and services and then just not funding or fully funding the cost of that service.  This proposal is a new low, even for Sacramento. When you lose the trust of the people to spend their hard earned tax dollars for the services originally promised to them – you can seldom recover from that kind of bait & switch.

As always, I welcome your comments, suggestions and complaints (related to county services).

=================================

Don't get me wrong, there is a legitimate housing shortage in California, and most assuredly so when it comes to "affordable housing". 

There are no quick fixes here. 

Then factor in the cottage industry of Green Mailing, and that only exacerbates the issue as projects are held up for ransom. 

That's where fraudulent environmental groups shake down developers and cities with the misuse of CEQA laws —laws designed to protect the environment, not enrich shysters in ways that they were never intended to be used.

Signed into law by Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1970, CEQA requires extensive study and mitigation of environmental impacts for both public and private development projects. This is typically a rather lengthy and costly process, which significantly increases the cost of development in the state.

“Today, CEQA is too often abused by those seeking to gain a competitive edge, to leverage concessions from a project or by neighbors who simply don’t want any new growth in their community – no matter how worthy or environmentally beneficial a project may be.” —Former Govs. George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson and Gray Davis wrote for the Sacramento Bee in February 2013.

Funny thing is, there is a serious effort to repeal SB1, though many experts don't think it has a chance to pass even if enough signatures are gathered to get it to the ballot.

This is your governor, vowing to make sure you pay the highest gas prices in the nation.

If it gets repealed then that would bring an immediate halt to many road improvement projects that have been cleverly tied to SB1. 

Which means that many [local] politicians, that would normally be against such tax hikes, don't necessarily want to see it go away.

Sorry, but I'm not going to be strong-armed into accepting a tax because some bullies up in Sacramento are threatening punishment if we the people rise up, demand better and seek to overturn bad legislation. 

If the repeal makes it to the ballot, I'll be voting for it.

Link to UT article about the repeal effort

Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez will be having a community coffee this Friday. I bet she'll bring it up (AB 1759) without prompting, but if not, I'll be there to get her thoughts on it. 

For all the people that bemoan things like Walmart coming to Wildomar, this is something that is real. Still, my prediction is that most people will be yawning as they ignore it in favor of some good old fashioned Facebook drama.

•                •                •

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
– Wernher Von Braun

Aware of Herr Von Brauns thoughts on the matter, Wildomar Rap takes a minimalist's approach to research.