CA: Tax-cutting Prop. 13 sent chill through community libraries

Mercury News ^ | 5/26/03 | Patrick May

[boris]

Let me expand:

The one near me: Chatsworth, Corner of Variel and Devonshire.

The one on my way to work out: Sherman Way, West of DeSoto.

And BTW, in Woodland Hills (near my barber) on Ventura Boulevard. They demolished the old one there and are constructing a huge new one.

--Boris

[Koblenz]

I don't have a problem with low taxes. But with Proposition 13, if you've got two identical houses on the same street, the owners could pay radically different property taxes if one bought his house last year and the other has lived in his house for 35 years. This isn't fair, and it's a major problem with Prop 13. If Prop 13 said that the total property tax receipts in a given jurisdiction couldn't rise more than a certain percentage, that'd be one thing. But it basically keeps the older people who haven't moved recently paying much lower taxes than younger families. Because of this, younger families have to pay a lot more in property taxes.

[tubebender]

This piece is just another hit piece on Prop 13. Redding is in the process of erecting a multi million FOOT BRIDGE designed by a mad Italian Architect across the Sacremento River. It is so convoluted that the contractor is about to throw up his hands on the project.

[absalom01]

That's a mad Spanish architect, if you please.

[absalom01]

This isn't fair, and it's a major problem with Prop 13.

Yes, the "howdy stranger" aspect of prop 13 has been played to the hilt by those who would use any excuse to raise taxes.

But, that was, and remains, a red herring. We live in an imperfect world, and freezing property taxes a-la prop 13 is the only viable method of hanging on to the purse strings. A floating average would a) damage the old folks on fixed incomes, and b) be utterly unverifiable on an individual basis. The only other viable solution would be to repeal property taxes altogether, and that's just not politically possible.

Hate to appeal to realpolitik, but the fact is that those who want to 'correct' prop 13, are only trying to find a way to get around the cap on revenue that it created.