At a time when polls show sky-high levels of disillusionment about quality of life in California, local and state elected officials have a choice. They can acknowledge that the governments they run have done a poor job of addressing the harsh cost of living, especially with housing.
Or they can pretend they’re doing a great job while trying to deflect blame onto convenient scapegoats — housing developers who understandably struggle to add homes in the most business-hostile state of all and landlords who agree with progressive think tanks that rent control only makes housing problems worse.
Which brings us to San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s recent “defiant” State of the County speech. Another adjective — “delusional” — also fits. For Lawson-Remer to seriously propose adding $1 billion in new taxes on county residents, the supervisor first needs to establish the county is well-run. But where are the laudatory grand jury reports that would exist if this claim were true? Beyond the fact that county roads have fewer potholes than those within San Diego city limits, where is the evidence that the county’s money in hand is well-spent? At a time when private sector productivity keeps improving, why is the county workforce as big as ever?
But there is one more reason to question Lawson-Remer’s agenda: her hallucinatory claim about the transformative power of a real estate transfer tax. “A small transfer fee on sales of the top 1 percent of properties in San Diego County, paid only once, when these properties change hands, could help break the stranglehold of our housing crisis,” she said.
Huh? For 30 years, every last governor of the state — Democrat and Republican alike — has lamented the fact that the California Environmental Quality Act makes it so easy to block new housing construction and/or inflate its cost. Higher taxes won’t reduce the real “stranglehold”: CEQA.
Now there is no question that the Trump White House’s ready-fire-aim assault on domestic spending is causing havoc with government agencies, and Lawson-Remer is right to call this a challenge for the county. But using Donald Trump to justify the largest tax hike in county history — while making bizarre assertions about an effect of that tax hike — should set off alarms among those familiar with the local history of mediocre, unable governance.
On July 1, the runoff election to fill the vacancy on the county Board of Supervisors will be held between Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre and Chula Vista Mayor John McCann. Voters need to hear exactly what Aguirre and McCann think about Lawson-Remer’s push for a massive tax hike — and her inexplicable belief that it could help with the cost of housing.
