By George Miller
Oxnard is now trying to solve years of fiscal mismanagement, poor negotiations and spending control with a huge $45 MILLION dollar annual sales tax increase.
Without any warning and burying it deep in supplemental agenda materials, the Council/staff are attempting to wash away all the City’s financial problems with a 1 1/2 % sales tax increase, on top of the regular CA sales tax and supplemental Oxnard Measure O 1/2% sales tax.
If you read the 10-15 agenda, you won’t even see it. You must dive into the 100’s of pages of agenda supporting materiual to learn this.
Instead, the agenda item conceals its true intent and impact in an Orwellian summary:
M. REPORTS
1. City Manager Department
SUBJECT: The Oxnard Government Accountability and Ethics Act. (10/25/15)
RECOMMENDATION: That the City Council approve a resolution placing the Oxnard
Government Accountability and Ethics Act (the Act) on the March 3, 2020 primary election ballot.
Legislative Body: City Council
Contact: Alexander Nguyen, (805) 385-7430
See anything there about a huge, confiscatory, highly controversial money grab? Nope. Should the so-called “transparency” act also address such deceptive phraseology?
Instead, to find out what’s REALLY going on, you have to dig through the voluminous agenda detail beginning on page 277 of 707 to finally learn that they want to pick your pockets:
OXNARD’S PROTECT LOCAL CONTROL, VITAL CITY SERVICES, PUBLIC’S SAFETY MEASURE
“To protect the public’s safety; improve 911 emergency/disaster preparedness, response times, vehicles; prevent fire station closures; repair local streets/potholes/alleys; address homelessness; maintain storm drains, parks, other general services/infrastructure, secure Oxnard’s financial stability; shall an ordinance establishing 1½ cent sales tax providing approximately $45,000,000 annually until ended by voters be adopted; requiring annual independent financial audits, public oversight, all funds for Oxnard?”
Alex Nguyen’s “transparency” act? Ha!
Remember next November, folks, If Aaron Starr doesn’t conduct another recall election first. And someone on the Council now wants a promotion to a six-figure County Supervisors job? For this kind of mismanagement?
George Miller is Publisher/Co-Founder of CitizensJournal.us and a “retired” operations management consultant residing in Oxnard.
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This will not result in the increase in revenue they are hoping for. Maybe no increase at all when shoppers flee to other cities. Don’t shop in Oxnard. Buy your car elsewhere. Go to Simi costco. Etc.
While taxes are going up, services are going down. Police will not even come anymore to deal with vagrants.
Oxnard is still being run by corrupt scoundrels. Need to vote them out.
I don’t buy much at the COSCO in Westlake Village becauae it is in Los Angeles County, that has a higher tax than Ventura County. Maybe those that live in Oxnard might consider doing most of their shopping outside of Oxnard City.
Once that starts, then the tax just keeps rising.
The tax money comes out of the local economy which is less money spent in local shops. It becomes self defeating. Government gets its own while the people suffer.
Ron Dunn,
Seriously, when your personal budget is stretched, what do you do…a prudent manager will tight tue city’s belt and suspenders, but instead the CM wants to take the easy route by recommending a sales tax increase, and it will burn a hole in the low income earners pockets. Alex, please think it through and do not ruin your career because it’s too hard to go about cut out all the inefficiencies.
Whether the people vote in favor of or against the tax, should the city cheat and lie on the ballot with a sales pitch for a yes vote? See Dishonest Ballots = Corrupt Government The time to prevent it is before the December filing deadline. It will be a test of how corrupt your city employees are.
The survey that resulted in the proposed ballot measure was conducted by FM3 Research. Their home page describes their business in the following way:
Who We Help
We help organizations win political campaigns; understand public perceptions of policy ideas; provide better services; change public behaviors; and improve brand recognition.
FM3 provides strategic advice to organizations seeking to educate, influence, or better serve target populations. Our advice is based upon opinion research we conduct with those populations, either through quantitative surveys with larger populations or qualitative research with smaller subgroups. (In other words, we conduct various kinds of surveys and focus groups.)
https://fm3research.com
It isn’t a problem of not enough income, it is a problem of too much spending. It is a problem of making sure every dime of money that has been “budgeted” is spent by the end of the fiscal year by every department. It doesn’t matter that the items purchased are not necessary, “need” can always be established.
When was the last time any department in the city didn’t spend all the money that had been budgeted and returned some of that budgeted money back to the city treasury? I would feel safe in betting a large sum that the answer is “never”.
If this tax is enacted it will never go away. Anyone who thinks that it will disappear is living in some kind of never-never land.
Do you see a telephone tax on your phone bill? That was an emergency tax instituted during WWII to help “pay for the war.”
Hello folks, WWII has been over for 74 years. Will we see that tax go away next year on the 75th anniversary of the ending of WWII. Don’t hold your breath starting August 15th 2020.
Homeland Security Fed Money is already given for most of what Oxnard is trying to tax us for, relating to this article.
This is unethical and not transparent as usual.
Time for no deposits in the pension fund until Oxnard can breathe again.
When Alex became the City Manager he told people he would be asking for a tax increase in 2020. It’s the right thing to do. It’s true, the city has been poorly managed over the past couple of decades. Now we have a City Manager that is trying to fix the problems and everyone is getting upset. I’m not happy about another tax, especially since Sacramento keeps gouging us then misappropriating the funds, but it is what Oxnard needs to get on track. Let’s fix the problems and move forward.
The quality of the items in the store is the reason I travel to neighboring cities to shop. I have seen the produce rotting in the stores in south Oxnard too many times. Now I just go somewhere else instead of wasting my time in that area.
Nobody shops in Oxnard anyway. It is dirty, vagrant infested and riddled with gangs.
At least some truth to that, but there are plenty of good stores in Oxnard and we like to spread our money locally.
Dumb. It’s not like it’s that difficult for Oxnard residents to go to Camarillo or Ventura to buy whatever they need.