By Mike Rosenfeld Santa Monica
The taxpayers rejection of Measure EE was a message that we don’t want to pay more taxes, AND that the city council needs to set new priorities that allocate additional money to our schools instead of spending millions for low-rent housing for Santa Monicans for Renters Rights campaign workers, social programs for non residents and other pork projects.
Bill Bauer in this paper last week exposed that the city had just given Community Corp. of Santa Monica $3.5 million solely to purchase the empty lots at 15th and Broadway. CCSM apparently intends to build about 30 units of low-rent housing primarily for SMRR campaign workers on the property. It will probably take another $6 million to build 30 units. Meanwhile, the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District is about to embark on layoffs of teachers, increase class size and implement a hiring freeze.
We have passed in the past few years a parcel tax for the schools, a SMMUSD construction bond, a bond for Santa Monica College and a library bond.
We are currently paying a 10 percent utility tax on all of our electric, gas, telephone, fax, cable, water and trash bills. These taxes generate millions of dollars. In addition, the recent sales of office buildings and houses have generated millions of dollars in real estate transfer taxes. With the highest utility tax in Southern California, and with $370 million in revenues, the City of Santa Monica has one of the highest incomes per resident in Southern California. The city council must stop spending our money on social programs for non-residents until our children’s school needs are fully funded.
Why should the city spend $3.5 million just to buy the land to build low rent housing ? Now I hear the city wants to spend $5 million to buy the property in the 1700 block of Cloverfield Boulevard for homeless programs.
Why should the city spend $5 million to buy a building on Cloverfield Boulevard when within six months the police will vacate their building behind City Hall and move into the new Public Safety Building? The empty police station could be used for whatever is in mind for the Cloverfield Boulevard property. Why should the city spend $5 million to buy a property on Cloverfield Boulevard when the historic Rand building will be vacant soon? Instead of demolishing this landmark, the $5 million SMRR intends to use to buy the Cloverfield building could be given to the SMMUSD and the city could use the (former) police building and or the historic Rand building after Rand moves to their new headquarters.
Parents of school children and other taxpayers, contact your city council members and tell them to stop spending money for SMRR campaign worker housing their pet social programs and pork projects, and instead give the money to our schools. The local PTAs should also organize and demand the schools be fully funded before SMRR spends more money to build additional units of low-rent campaign worker housing, their pet social programs and pork projects. Also, if you think the city should not spend $5 million to buy a building on Cloverfield Boulevard when the police station and the Rand building will be available soon, tell them to allocate the $5 million for our schools.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 22, 2002. Read the original PDF.