As we head into 2009, City elections set for March 3rd will decide council offices in the odd-numbered districts up for election for another 4-year term (The even-numbered Districts will be up for election in two more years). Guess what? Lincoln Heights is in Council District 1 ("CD-1").
CD-1 Council Member ("CM"), Ed Reyes, is running for a 3rd term with only one opponent, Jesus Rosas, having qualified to be on the ballot so he's certainly pleased. The lack of any challenge to what City Hall routinely does is disheartening. Occasionally, the ire of the community is raised as with the aborted "Las Villas" project that would have put a restaurant and banquet facility on the site that was occupied by the Rose Eye Clinic. The biggest objection was made based on the intention to have alcohol served in the restaurant. Many opponents likened this condition to having a liquor store added to the neighborhood and scenarios of doom and disaster for residents and students were some of the extreme levels to which the discussion was taken.
The site is now a dirt lot across the street from the LHS on Thomas St. and North Broadway. CM Reyes resisted for a while, considering an addition to the business element of Lincoln Heights would be economically beneficial. Finally, the continued protests forced Reyes to reconsider the whole thing, and he relented in his support and the project ended. This was about as close as Reyes has come to being challenged while in office.
City elections largely demonstrate an historic apathy, with often only 1/4 or less of the registered voters participating in the city elections. The city council ran through two deceptive measures that pulled in the desired result in 2007. One total lie was the "term limits" proposition that really was a"term extension" ploy, connected with the "ethics reform." The Council supported this wholeheartedly- who do you think put it together? The result was to fool the voters to think that "ethics in government" were being somehow monitored and enforced. The reality was that the second of the two-fold purpose of this measure had the purpose of changing the term limits from two-term to add one more, for a total maximum of THREE-terms. That was played DOWN to a whisper level, lest anyone understand the true reason for creating the ballot measure.
The ethics part of the measure was another irony. What ethics are demonstrated by a council that intentionally misleads the voters? The called for in the ethics part of the measure had little useful effect, just a little re-shuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic. But it did serve the purpose of camouflaging the term extension as it was designed to do.
Our city council, including the CD-1 representative, Ed Reyes, pushed another measure that was called a "10 % tax reduction of the phone tax." That was another completely dishonest move in intent, although not in math.
The City had a 10 percent tax on all phone service in the city. There was a court challenge to the City's tax because the federal enabling regulations relied upon for collecting this tax had recently ceased, but the City kept it's tax collection running. The court case was pending a decision that was very clearly heading to a decision that would declare the tax illegal and bar the City from collecting the 10 percent tax or any tax.
The "deal" that lured voters was a "reduction of 10 percent" of the phone tax. It would change from a "10% tax" to a "9% tax" and that IS "ten-percent." Sounds good? What's the catch? If the voters had simply all stayed home, or voted "NO" to the measure, the anticipated court decision would have invalidated the tax completely- you would have a "Zero" tax, reducing it "100%"; and the end of that tax altogether.
The Council saw this outcome clearly and quickly moved to create the measure to ENACT a tax by "voter approval." Such "voter" approval WOULD legally be the authorization needed to take the place of the federal provisions that were ended and no longer available to support the continuing 10-percent city tax. A "NO" on this measure would have meant what? It changes it all. The existing tax would have been ruled invalid and the City would be missing that money- and all politicians live to handle and disperse money, the more the better. We can examine to whom it goes at another time.
Now that the tax measure was voted on and approved, there is a NEW city tax put into place that collects 9% instead of 0%, NOT a good deal. Oh, and they didn't make the other parts of this very clear, but the measure not only created the 9% tax for phone service, it extended the City's authority to tax other aspects of phone usage including Internet activities. Proponents say that won't happen but they could not give a good reason for putting it there. If they did not intend to have it ready to be used and create more tax opportunities for the City, then why put it there?
All this is the City government that Reyes is part and parcel of and it's too bad that there is only one challenger to run for that office to represent CD-1, or any CD in an ethical manner. Both measures were supported by all CMs as you will find no comments by them as I have presented to show the "OTHER SIDE" that they did not want to reveal. That is not honesty, but whatever you want to call it, that IS what we have now.
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