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In the wake of Diana Lee Carey’s financial fact sheet and last week’s townhall meeting, and on the eve of tonight’s momentous Westminster Council meeting, residents were rudely assaulted by robocalls and mailers from the OC TAX, which were literally a tissue of lies.
The aim was of course to scare Westminster residents that your Council was planning to RAISE YOUR TAXES – and to scare your Council out of voting tonight TO EVEN ALLOW YOU TO DECIDE whether or not you think a 1-cent sales tax is a good idea for Westminster.
We’ll debunk most of these lies in a little bit, but first, let’s ask, “WHO IS OC TAX?”
The OC Taxpayers Association is a powerful lobbying clique answerable ONLY to the biggest and most powerful businesses in this County and outside – we call them a “kleptocratic” group. They don’t care at all about the average taxpayer. Along with their sister group the OC Business Council, they are the handmaidens of the corporations who suck up our public money, hence draining our resources and sometimes making it NECESSARY to propose something like a small sales tax just to keep your basic services.
You want some examples, great.
OC TAX was in the forefront of fighting to put toll lanes onto Orange County freeways, starting with the 405. (Unsurprisingly, Councilwoman Carey led the fight AGAINST that.) This is possibly the most BRUTAL ASSAULT ON OC TAXPAYERS in history – We have paid 1.3 BILLION of Measure M taxes to improve our freeways in the way we taxpayers want – by adding one or two more FREE lanes on each side of the 405. What OC TAX and their allies want is to take that 1.3 billion from you and me to build those new lanes – tearing down and rebuilding a dozen of our bridges – and then turn the two inner lanes into EXPENSIVE TOLL LANES. So after all our expense and hassle, YOU AND I END UP WITH NO NEW LANES … unless we want to pay AGAIN to use the toll lanes. Why would a group that pretends to fight for the ordinary taxpayer support such a gigantic swindle? Because the corporations that OC TAX REALLY works for are hoping to profit off the tolls we pay.
Another example: OC TAX and their klepto allies have been moving heaven and earth to foist the POSEIDON DESAL PLANT on us – a grossly wasteful and unnecessary (not to mention destructive) proposal that will raise our water rates by a lot, while costing us taxpayers in other ways due to the subsidies the crooked company is demanding. Again, OC TAX is helping to stick the knife in you while they pretend to be on your side. I should note that Tyler Diep, the one Westminster councilman who, much like a Communist, is adamantly refusing to let you vote on your city’s future, goes regularly to water board meetings to talk about how much we “need” Poseidon, falsely giving the impression that the rest of the council agrees with him or has even discussed it.
I could give example after example, but I need to get this out NOW. I note that on their website, they have a list of businesses they support wholeheartedly, and one of them is FivePoint Homes, who are leading the fight against the OC Veterans Cemetery we have planned for the Irvine Great Park – because some of the investors FivePoint hopes to sell to find it offensive to have a cemetery near their homes. Nothing to do with saving us taxpayers ANYTHING, everything to do with DISRESPECTING OUR VETERANS AND OUR DEMOCRACY.
Well, that’s enough of that. I want to specifically address all the lies Westminster residents have been inundated with over the last couple days from OC TAX and their leader Carolyn Cavecche. I remember when Carolyn was an honest-enough Orange Mayor and OCTA Board member, but she totally transformed when getting this OC TAX job – now you can generally pick out a lie in every sentence. Last year after discovering her blog I was tempted to write a piece called “OC TAX Lies” but it just felt too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel, and I got bored.
Central to both her robocall and the mailer are her BIG LIE – that council members are threatening to RAISE YOUR TAXES. No. These council members are voting on whether to LET YOU VOTE, this November, on whether or not to have a modest 1% sales tax. (And once again, make sure you’ve read Councilwoman Carey’s fine fact sheet on why this is the only possible way to keep your fine city solvent.) The council majority (which we hope will be joined by Mayor Ta) TRUSTS YOUR JUDGMENT ON THIS. OC TAX, and Councilman Tyler Diep, not only LIE to you, but also DON’T TRUST YOUR JUDGMENT TO MAKE THIS ESSENTIAL DECISION.
The mailer itself, crowned with a grotesque image of a poor woman lying face down being crushed by giant concrete dollar signs, goes on to tell you more lies, let’s see if I can catch most of them:
- The front side (which I don’t have a copy of) screams out that Westminster will be subjected to EVEN MORE TAXES, from which you would never guess that it is about the lowest-taxed city in the county.
- The back side
(which I was able to copy off Voice of OC, to the right) claims that THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN NEW TAXES will be landing on your backs. Now what the hell is that supposed to mean? If it means the whole city together is going to be paying $2000 or more, then who would even notice. No, they’re suggesting that the average resident will be paying $2000 or more in taxes. How would that be possible from a 1% sales tax? Do the math? An individual would have to spend $200,000 a year – in taxable items that is – for that to even be BARELY true. Liars. DEMAGOGUES!!! - “Westminster’s own Financial Task Force says now is not the time to raise taxes.” Nowhere did the Task Force say that. The quote beneath that is taken grossly out of context.*
- Look at the ridiculous story next to that telephone – “How outrageous are taxes in Westmister!” You’ll even be taxed for calling your council! You’re already taxed with a Utility User Tax on telephone use, “something few taxpayers in OC have to pay!” TOTAL LIE. Almost every city in the county has a utility tax, and Westminster’s is just about the lowest.
I gotta go. I think I’ll make this piece my speech tonight at your council meeting, since you probably won’t have had a chance to read it yet. PLEASE SHOW UP at 7 tonight, encourage the Council to let you vote on your City’s future, and tell Ms Cavecche and her millionaires’ lobby group to go back to whatever the hell OC city they came from.
*UPDATE ON THE FINANCIAL TAX FORCE PARAGRAPH
Okay, that one wasn’t technically a lie – the Task Force did write that sentence – but it was still bullshit. The recommendations the Task Force said should come before any tax hike were all looked at and found to be impossible by the Council, as explained on Diana’s Fact Sheet.
Two thumbs up for the whistleblowing.
I am a Westminster resident that purposefully tries NOT to leave any money in cities that have higher tax rates. So guess what!
Well, the first question you leave me with is: do you not feel you deserve the right to vote against a sales tax?
Instead you try to leave your money in cities that are insolvent? Or maybe you’re a vulture capitalist?
Vern, my review of OC Tax leads me to agree with your description of this outfit. : Leadership of OC Tax as listed on-line at http://www.octax.org/#!octax-board/cumz consists of former politicians, lobbyists, large employers such as Disneyland, large utility companies, realtors and developers. Membership annual fees range from a low of $45 to a high of $17,500 a year – source: http://www.octax.org/#!join/cd6f. The higher the annual membership fee you pay the more you get in the way of prime seating at their events, your logo on their web site or statoinary, etc. If is another version of pay to play by special interests and influence peddlers.
You could tell how pissed off people were about the robocalls and the false mailers.. I bet if you dig deep enough you’ll find ties to the weasel Tyler Triple Diep.
You stay til the end? How’d vote go?
OC Daily is reporting that the Council voted 4-1 to put it on the ballot. We can expect a lot of dirty tricks on this campaign.
I did .. Good ole Triple Diep Tyler said he doesn’t trust the council with the revenue generated by the sales tax therefore he voted NO to allow the residents to have a say in November.
So, he doesn’t trust the people OR his own colleagues.
How very Communist.
What a meeting! And coming right after last night’s dramatic Orlando-themed Anaheim meeting. This one was overflow onto rows and rows of chairs on the front lawn – the crowdedest Westminster meeting I’ve been to since the uprising against Janet’s Black April Faceplant in 2010.
Before public comments, Diana insisted on denouncing the OCTax mailer. Mayor Ta kept trying to shut her up “Now is not the time!” “Well, throw me in jail, baby!” she retorted (to much laughter and cheers) and got out everything she wanted to say. No wonder she could be so saucy, there were dozens of Westminster cops there, and the cops are on her side – especially on this matter.
I didn’t realize till later, but we had even lost squirrely Sergio, who’d apparently been spooked by OCTax. So it was 3 men no, 2 women yes at that point – we didn’t even have a majority, let alone the supermajority we needed.
Probably 3/4 of the 50 or so speakers were FOR letting the people vote (known as Item 8-1.) There are a lot of smart and passionate people in Westminster! Half a dozen police spoke in favor. They are the most underpaid and understaffed in the county, staffed at 1974 levels so overworked, and Tyler’s solution was to fire even more of them. They spoke well. My wife Donna seemed impressed with the Westminster cops, who seemed unusually friendly and professional.
One jolly, 40-year-old OG-cholo spoke in favor, reminded Sergio how they had gone to school together, and Diana how she had given him his first job (“He was the BEST security guard,” Di broke in) and he spoke of how Westminster cops had always treated people of all races with respect. Also memorable was an ancient Vietnamese businessman who told horror stories of Viet gang violence in the late 80s, the last time there was a police shortage. “We were beginning to convert our homes into STRATEGIC HAMLETS,” he reminisced.
I gave a speech based on my article above.
Opposed were a surprisingly few ideological conservatives, although nobody really seemed to back Tyler’s draconian ideas, they just talked vaguely of keeping spending down. ALSO: Three large CAR DEALERSHIPS, who darkly threatened to have to move if a 1% sales tax got added to their prices “and THEN think of all the revenue you’ll lose!” Maybe it was them who called in Cavecche and OCTax. She was there too of course, she was a bundle of energy as always, but I don’t believe she stuck around to hear me deconstruct her.
Also, Assemblyman Travis Allen sent HB’s dunderhead Joe Carchio to recite an error-filled right wing screed against the measure; and his psychotic Democrat opponent Lenore Albert was there to confuse everyone with a laundry list of flaky alternatives, but did not fail to talk about herself a lot.
I had to leave after I spoke, but I hear that the hearts and minds of Mayor Tri Ta and Sergio Contreras were BOTH changed (for the nth time) by the eloquent crowd, and the measure passed 4-1. So the people of Westminster will get to vote on their future after all this November!
I hear Tyler banged the floor like Rumplestilstkin and vows to somehow at least prevent the council from LETTING THE PEOPLE KNOW about the vote and the issue. SPEEDMAN, YOU’LL LIKE THIS – My next piece will be “Tyler Diep, Communist.” Can you hit me up at chezvern@aol.com, you seem to know more about him than I.
Triple Diep Tyler is already spreading his propaganda via OC Daily.. Have a read of their article. Full of lies and deception just like Triple Diep. One of his comments at the meeting was very telling.. he said they had already cut the cities workforce by 1/3 and that “It was a start. It wasn’t enough.” It’s apparent he has no love for the city workers, especially the police department.
http://www.ocdaily.net/home/breaking-westminster-council-votes-4-1-to-place-1-sales-tax-hike-on-ballot/
I like the title of the upcoming article Vern. My email is in this response btw.
OC Daily?
Oh God, that’s Matt Cunningham’s new project, that I’d heard about but hadn’t bothered to go look for.
Now you got me arguing with Cunningham again. Feels like 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, all over again.
“I remember when Carolyn was an honest-enough Orange Mayor and OCTA Board member”
Everything is relative. I guess. But she was the klepto’s hand picked successor to Klepto #2 – Bill Campbell, as a 3rd District Supervisor in 2012,, a plan that fell apart when Sptizer ran and brushed her aside. The OCTax scam-job is just something to make her look plausible for when Spitzer moves up, or out.