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 DRAW A LINE IN THE SAND
Good afternoon. Your Modesto city council is in the process of giving away $161,000! I imagine you are saying, “What the heck are you talking about, Dave”. Well, let me tell you. StanCOG is made up of the mayors and representatives from all 9 cities and the County. StanCOG is planning to put another TAX INCREASE Measure that would increase your sales tax by ½ percent, raising the county sales tax from 7.375% to 7.875%. They say this will be used for regional and local roads and streets. BUT, there are some problems with the “plan”. First, they do not have a plan; they do not have projected costs, they do not have ANY specifics, especially for local roads. Steve Madison (BIAA), at a city council meeting, said, “This is a half baked plan!” and appears to be very unhappy with it. Second, why is our council giving this money away? Because the 8 OTHER cities and the County CEO voted to BILL US for $161,000 to be used to run a campaign to CONVINCE us to raise our taxes. OUR representative voted “NO, BUT was the only one against using our money for this purpose. To be fair, the others would chip in pennies compared to our dollars for this campaign, but don’t you think it is a sweet deal for them to vote to spend our money? Third, using taxpayer money to promote a tax increase is clearly ILLEGAL; that is, it is AGAINST THE CALIFORNIA STATE CODE! Now, I do not yet care what you think about the tax increase, because we have no idea of what the real plan is going to be. (Remember the “half baked” part?) But, our city council does not have enough money to run our city. The schools do not have enough money to run their schools. The State does not have enough money to run the State. WHY, THEN, WOULD OUR CITY COUNCIL SQUANDER $161,000 FOR AN ILLEGAL TAX PROMOTION SCHEME, AND PROPOSE TO RAISE YOUR SALES TAX IN THE BARGAN? It seems to me that every entity in America is planning to raise your taxes. And I mean the next President will raise your taxes, the State legislature will raise your taxes, the schools will raise your taxes, the county will raise your taxes, and the CITY COUNCIL is giving away money so they can RAISE YOUR TAXES. Again, remember that your city council has raised every fee and tax they can. They tripled your water rates and attendant utility tax. They doubled your sanitary sewer rates. They are currently planning to quadruple your storm sewer rates (even if you do not have storm sewers…). The even had the gall to raise your taxes on cable TV. Now this same council plans to use your TRANSIT TAX REVENUES to give away $161,000 to StanCOG in an effort to raise your sales tax. I find this remarkable. I hope you are as ticked off as I am. Thanks, Dave.
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Opinion 
