Barbara Lee is urging voters to approve Measure E, the latest ballot proposition to impose even higher taxes on Oakland homeowners.
Of course Lee’s in favor of it. As a committed crypto-communist, her fiscal plan has always been to rob from the middle classes and redistribute the money to the poor, meaning people of color. Over the past eight years, Oakland has slammed its residents with six new parcel taxes, imposing a total of $801.50 a year on homeowners—but wait, there’s more. The Oakland Unified School District also is empowered to impose parcel taxes and has done so with a vengeance; since 2008 we’ve been hit with $435 in new school parcel taxes, and the district still can’t balance its budget or educate its young charges. And now, here comes Measure E next month, with another $192 per parcel tax, which would bring the annual total for each homeowner to $1,428.50.
That’s a lot of money to pile on top of our already sky-high regular property taxes. Oakland’s effective property tax rate is one of the highest in the Bay Area, and if the leftwing thieves who run this town, courtesy of the unions, remain in power, homeowners will continue to pay higher and higher parcel taxes. In fact, homeowners are the last piggy bank for corrupt social politicians to steal from in order to fund their city-killing schemes.
These politicians, like Lee, always promise us heaven on earth with every new parcel tax, but they never, ever deliver. Our just-fired City Administrator, Jestin Johnson (sexting scandal), revealed in Oaklandside that “The City of Oakland broke its promises in three out of the last four parcel tax measures,” including 2024’s Measure NN, “which was passed on the promise of providing improved public safety, in particular police officers.” That would be a joke, except that the criminals are having the last laugh. Where did the money go? All we know is that (a) OPD is suffering historically low officer numbers, so NN’s promise to hire more cops was a lie. We know also that much of NN’s money went to the Department of Violence Prevention, and specifically to “community-based organizations.” But if you believe that these nonprofits actually help to reduce crime and violence, then I have a bridge to sell you. In fact, if Oakland media had the same investigating reporting that San Francisco has, we’d see the same headlines about scandals, pilfering, personal profiteering and theft in the nonprofit sector. But Oakland doesn’t have that level of scrutiny. Oaklandside pretends to, and occasionally does some real reporting, but for the most part the thieves and grifters get away with their theft because nobody knows about it.
Or almost nobody. I believe there are members of the City Council who are well aware of the corruption, but they “go along to get along.” It’s easier for them to tolerate a little theft here and there than to get entangled in a giant brouhaha with the unions and the permanent bureaucracy, which knows how to extract revenge on its perceived enemies. The Department of Violence Prevention (DVP) is taking credit for the drop in murders in the last year, but as I have repeatedly reported, this drop in murders and other violent crimes is happening in every single city in America! As I’ve pointed out, it will take social historians years to figure out why (beyond normal, random fluctuations in the sine curve), so for Oakland’s apologists to claim the credit is chutzpah of the highest order. You will never convince me that DVP is a legitimate way to spend our money because I simply know too much about how these nonprofits work. Bureaucrat “A” gives money to Consultant “B,” who directs it to Director “C”, who happens to be her brother-in-law, and then Director “C” hires Specialist Employee “D,” who—surprise!—is the brother-in-law’s daughter’s husband, who submits his nonprofit’s data up through the chain of command. And the public buys into the charade, which the Mayor and the City Council know all about, but do nothing to stop because—well, they “go along to get along.”
George Orwell would have fun with this corruption and dysfunction, were he still around to write about it. He’s not, but I am. Measure E is theft, lies and scandal. The money will not go to help OPD, nor will it do a thing about encampments. Oakland officials have gotten so used to telling lies about these things that they can’t help themselves from doing it again. “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me,” is the operative principle here. Measure E money will go exactly where its creators have always intended it to go: to the corrupt employee unions, especially SEIU. That is not good for Oakland, not good for homeowners, not good for businesses, not good for people of color, not good for anyone, except for the flunkies who happen to be represented by SEIU. They will get some dinky raise and maybe another paid holiday, while the rest of us get the shaft.
Steve Heimoff