For those of us that have stayed in our houses for decades, Prop 13 has saved us many thousands of dollars in reduced property taxes. We have been in our house for 31 years, and in that amount of time my wife and I have saved enough money to actually have money set aside for retirement. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars that the government would have extracted from our bank accounts.

Tonight, Prop 13 saved everyone in Stanislaus County by requiring a two thirds majority in order for the powers to be to raise our sales tax by 1/2 cent per dollar. Despite spending almost $500,000.00 to brainwash the voters, the proponents of Measure K fell far short of the 66% Yes vote that was required to force us to pay more for just about everything we buy. All our bills are going up sharply, with planned future increases in our electric, garbage, and water bills. I look at this as a great victory for the average taxpayer who is trying to balance an ever tightening budget every month. The people on fixed incomes will benefit greatly.

It is gratifying that our message got out to as many people as it did. With this web site, and the hard work from Dave Thomas, Georgiana McDonald, Carmen Sabatino, Bill Conrad, Bill Mick, George House, The Stanislaus Taxpayers Association, and  several other people, we were able to thwart the efforts of the developers, The Modesto BEE, Chamber of Commerce, Building Industry Association, etc. who wished to extract even more money for StanCOG that has nothing to show for $170 Million of our tax dollars collected during the last ten years.

We are going to put our elected officials on notice, that any further attempts to ram this tax down our throats will be met with even stiffer opposition, and those elected officials that choose to push for this again will find re-election difficult at best. The plain truth is that WE ARE ALREADY TAXED OUT! Start spending our money wisely, and you will be surprised what can be done without increasing our taxes. Quit the wasteful use of expensive consultants. Force city and county staff to do the work that we pay them to do. Pay as you go, rather than bonding everything in sight. Manage our local government like you are managing your own budget at home. If you can't afford to do it, then don't do it. Force developers to pay for all of the costs of infrastructure that their developments cause. This sounds kind of simple doesn't it? We will be watching the elected officials that are in the developers hip pockets, and will make sure that the public knows what is actually going on.                        Please Click on "Read More"

Comments (1)

Amen! written by Mod Steve on November 9, 2006 Right on to the above excellent article! The taxpaying Voters HAVE spoken, we ARE taxed out, & even though The Mod Bee, Chamber of Commernce, and the rest of the usual suspects did "Their Very Best" make Measure K law...still it was No Sale with the Voters! Now isn't it about time the State Attorney General's Office look into how our local Tax-Dollars were mis-used?

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