A tricky two-step to ram through the regional housing tax might be too much for Bay Area voters
It's dubious that two-thirds of Bay Area voters would agree to a whopping $20 billion regional bond that raises property taxes by thousands of dollars. They may not need to. Enter Proposition 5, the bond measure’s shotgun bride, also on the ballot this November. Prop 5 aims to immediately reduce the bond threshold to 55%. In an OC Register op/ed, Jon Coupal of Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Ass'n reports that local taxpayers have organized, and they might loudly object.
California politicians are addicted to debt. For voters and taxpayers, it’s time to schedule an intervention. Let’s pick November 5th.
The largest affordable housing bond in California history will be decided by the voters in nine Bay Area counties. This regional bond proposal, which dwarfs all previous statewide housing bonds, will raise the property taxes on a typical home by thousands of dollars over the life of the bonds. The entire financial obligation will rest solely on the backs of property owners within the nine-county region. Given that homeowners are high-propensity voters, this bond from the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority is already facing organized opposition.
BAHFA is hoping for voter approval of Prop 5, which would retroactively lower the vote threshold for passing housing bonds from two-thirds to 55%. But taxpayers don’t like this kind of political gamesmanship, as evidenced by the negative polling on an earlier version of Prop 5.
Read the whole thing here.
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