Valley VOTE Press Release
Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment
14622 Ventura Blvd. #424, Sherman Oaks, CA. 91403
Feb. 5, 2005 Contact: Joe Vitti -President 2005
Email: javittisr@cs.com [818] 366 1668

The Board of Directors of Valley VOTE has
voted overwhelmingly to OPPOSE the proposed
increase of 1/2% in the Sales Tax for the city of
Los Angeles to provide a revenue source for
the hiring of police officers.

Discussion
It has been well understood for years that the police forces of New York, Chicago and other major cities have a significantly higher number of officers per capita than the city of Los Angeles. This in fact was a major issue in the effort by the San Fernando Valley to form it's own city in the 2002 campaign. We all favor increasing the size of our police force but believe that the proposal to increase the sales tax by 1/2% is not the solution to solve this police funding problem.

Major reasons for rejecting the increase in sales tax are as follows.

1] This increase will add to the argument that Los Angeles is not a "business friendly" city and damage the anticipated benefits of the long awaited changes to the business taxes that were finally passed this year by the L.A. City Council

2] The citizens have already voted on this issue in the last election and the 2/3 requirement for passage was not met county or city wide. If the county wide tax which made more sense as it properly treated the issue as a regional problem, failed, why would one expect the city only result to pass.

3] The increase in sales tax for Los Angeles to 8.75% would make it the city with the highest sales tax in the 88 cities in the county. There are 20 cities on or totally within the boundaries of Los Angeles that would have significantly lower sales tax. Shoppers do not concern themselves with city limits but only the lowest price they can find particularly with high price ticket items. As they become more aware of the differences in the sales tax over time revenues will erode.

4] Business owners will take this higher tax rate into serious consideration when making plans for expansion and /or relocation. For evidence check out the number of fortune 500 companies now located in L.A. as compared to the surrounding smaller cities. L.A. has 4 , the city of El Segundo- 3, and Calabasas-2.

5] Law breakers and gang members ignore city boundaries. A car thief living in Glendale does not restrict his operation within the city limits of Glendale. Crime prevention is a county wide issue.

6] The sales tax will have a greater effect on lower income families that need all the pennies they can save to meet their financial obligations.

7] An increase in the sales tax by 1/2% will lead to a reduction in revenues independent of any other factors. Although not a large change, it is estimated using the concept of "Tax Elasticity," a reduction of about 1 million dollars will result.

8] The passage of Greig Smith's proposal to immediately fund 250 police officers and also taking into account the additional 25 million dollars from the Federal Government to hire about 200 more does help solve our immediate needs. It provides us additional time to determine a more prudent solution to our police funding issue.


Contact:
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