As Yuba County residents wait for a Judge Stephen Berrier decision on the legality of the Measure K sales tax measure, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Californians are benefitting from rulings elsewhere supporting Propositions 13 (1978) and 218 (1996) requiring a 2/3s vote of the populace for new taxes.

On June 6th 1978, 62.6% of California voters passed Proposition 13, People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation, also known as the Jarvis-Gann Amendment. It amended the Constitution of California changing how taxes were assessed on real property and how taxes are raised in the state.

Liberals have had their way for many decades in the retreat from managing forests, no thinning brush or removal of dead trees. The idea is that humans are bad for the earth and need to be restrained and relocated in stack and pack housing, leaving the “wild” to creatures and a nature utopia. 

While California schools are at the bottom in terms of academic performance they are one of the leaders in legal settlements for sexual abuse of children by school employees. Unions make it nearly impossible to fire a teacher but if accomplished it costs taxpayers an average of $500,000 and several years.

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) will pay $22 million to settle lawsuits by 16 current and former students who were sexually abused by two coaches.

Last Tuesday night the Marysville City Council rejected a proposal by rice farmer Charlie Mathews and former City Councilmember Dale Whitmore to once again pump fresh Yuba River water to Ellis Lake. Mathews was to contribute $10,000 and Whitmore $1,500 along with collaborating with all entities (Yuba Water Agency, State Water Resources, PG and E and the city) to make the lake clean once again.

CalPERS, (California’s Public Employment Retirement System), the largest pension plan in the nation ($370 billion in assets), is in the news every week somewhere. It’s a fiasco, but that is California these days.

You pay more than 100 different taxes each year with the understanding that government will take care of business.  In the post war 1950s through the 1970’s amazing modern cities, airports, roadways and water projects were developed preparing us for the future. The world was in awe of America.

In 2016, Marysville, CA., 12,000 plus in population and 3.6 sq. mi. in size, was going bankrupt following decades of businesses leaving the city. In spite of shouldering millions of dollars in devastating long-term real estate debt the city council determined to continue funding its own police and fire departments rather than contracting out for services.

Yuba County Administrator Robert Bendorf and his County Supervisors wanted their cake and eat it too when it came to the Measure K Sale Tax. Their private lobbying, town hall meetings, mailers, social media postings and signage sold the Measure as a Public Safety Special Tax that would be restricted to a special fund.

In June 2018, the Sutter County Grand Jury (GJ) refused to sign a severely edited version of their work and resigned. Therefore, no GJ report was available for the public. 

Americans often see a problem; get the cause wrong, and then the solution as well. Years ago, China could not feed its population due to centralized control of business and agriculture. Slow Americans concurred with China’s forced abortion one-child policy because Americans thought the problem was too many people rather than a lack of productivity.

When it comes to voter fraud and stealing elections democrats certainly have the reputation for it. Dogs and dead people voting, slogans like vote early and vote often, and ballot box stuffing are infamously remembered along with the Chicago Democratic Machine and New York’s Tammany Hall. 

In 1922 there were 12 million cars in the United States, and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimated that the country would run out of oil by 1942. But in 2016, there were 268.8 million US vehicles burning oil and gas. Was the U.S.G.S. off-base or what! The reason they were clueless was that they didn’t take into account new discovery and extraction solutions to come.

The left is feigning a hissy-fit over President Trump’s remarks that if the four congresswomen hate America so intensely, they could always return to their homeland. What’s wrong with that?

Under President “we don’t have a strategy yet” Obama Isis was allowed to burn and destroy historic landmarks, museums pieces, artifacts and anything else of the past. Isis wanted to eradicate all that was not Islamic. The evil crusade was extreme, deranged and nonsensical, like liberals.

Frequently those seeking political office portray themselves as they want people to see them rather than who they really are. It’s called hypocrisy. 

A local juvenile, when asked why he “held-up” a convenience store, said he needed money because he was living on the street having left his family. When asked why he didn’t go to work he said he needed money right away and the store “could afford it.” The boy was an addict.

Burgess Owens, former Oakland Raider Super Bowl XV Champion, entrepreneur, bestselling author and speaker said, “I used to be a Democrat until I did my history and found out the misery that that party brought to my race.”