Ballot Argument Against The New Sales Tax
Pulled from the City of Fullerton’s website, here is the official ballot statement of opposition to the new sales tax proposed by our Mayor-for-hire. Jennifer Fitzgerald. If you think about it the tax proposal is a monumental indictment of the tenure of Fitzgerald and her yes vote, Jan Flory, on the city council. Employee pay raise after pay raise, unbalanced budget after unbalanced budget.
VOTE NO!
Ask yourself: Does the City of Fullerton need even more money from me? If this tax
passes, every time you make a purchase, you will pay 9% sales tax in Fullerton, the
second highest sales tax in Orange County.
The ballot measure title is deceitful. This massive tax increase is not dedicated to fix
Fullerton streets, which are rated the worst in Orange County by OCTA. Rather, the
money would go into the General Fund and could be used for anything.
This 1.25% sales tax increase would be permanent. It is general, not specific, meaning
the City Council could spend this money on salaries and pension benefits for City
Administrators and other City employees.
Over the past decade, Fullerton’s failed leadership spent nearly all revenue increases on
salaries and pension benefits:
Since 2011, sales tax revenue grew by 51%, property tax revenues increased 52%.
Between 2015-16, Council majority approved $19.5 million in pay increases.
Since 2011, the Council raised its two largest department budgets 41% and 55%.
In 2019 alone, according to Transparent California: 146 City of Fullerton employees
received over $200,000 in total compensation, while 51 employees received over
249,000 in total compensation. Fullerton pension recipients collected over $43 million.
The City has already increased water rates by a whopping 29% since June 2019, and is
scheduled to increase rates again by another 11% next July 1st.
The facts are: the City had plenty of money to repair our roads many years ago had it
adopted sensible reforms and reasonable, balanced budgets. Fullerton should already
have smooth streets and water pipes that do not routinely burst.
Vote NO on higher sales taxes!
And she has the balls to say she’s proud of it.
She may be fer it, but I’m agin it, I ain’t a-swallerin’ that! Whooo-doggey!!!
Are you kidding me? The police will not enforce the overnight parking in our city. The weeds have grown beyond 5 foot tall. I have been a resident of Fullerton since 1982 in all the years I have never seen our city look so shabby. I have heard of road improvement for years. Nothing but BS..We don’t need an increase to fix our roads. I think we need a change from the city manager all the way down. I am seriously considering running for office to clean it up.
We need to get all these people out. They are RUINING our city. I’ve been in this city 20 years and the roads have always been “on the agenda”. Unbelievable that it’s still a problem with only a few bandaids thrown on it here and there. The citizens of Fullerton need to organize a protest of city hall. It’s all a freaking mess. Besides the fact that they can’t get their own city works done… I’ve been waiting on a permit for FOUR months. I won’t get into it but it’s been in lag for that long over very minor changes. They are all incompetent. The whole building…
I agree with everything in the statement, but please identify who wrote it. I did a quick search, but couldn’t find it.
Found it.
Jack Dean, President, Fullerton Association of Concerned Taxpayers (FACT)
Chris Thompson, Fullerton School District President – Retired
Bruce Whitaker, Fullerton City Council Member
Damion “Lloyd” Planchin, Member of Fullerton’s Infrastructure + Natural Resources Advisory Committee
Gregory C. Sebourn, Former Mayor of Fullerton
If the consultant they are paying $125,000 Is so sure they can convince The Fullerton public to vote yes. Are they giving the money back if we vote no?
Nay, why pay based on performance?
Until we stop giving every level of government more and more money the waste and self-serving salaries and pensions will continue. Transparentcalifornia.com is a real eyeopener as is HJTA.com
VOTE NO!! NO on City taxes, NO on Split Roll of Prop13, NO on any “bait and switch” new tax or increased tax proposed. And NO to those that support tax increases.
The city first needs to privatize paramedic services like Placentia before they start increasing taxes. Let’s see how much the City can save each year by doing that first – I’d be willing to bet that if we restructured the fire department the cost savings alone would negate the need for a sales tax increase.
The fact that our government does this tell us they don’t care & we should fight back by not letting them live life how they want while we suffer cause they are using hard earned money for them being lazy….I’ve seen far more (ghetto) neighborhoods that looked better
Well, someone has to pay for all of the new hires in Fullerton. The City has recently picked up a few Administrative Analysts (multiple for each department) and will be paying them with the new sales tax measure. I wonder how many part-time employees won’t be returning to work because of this…
And they won’t be able to analyze the difference between a pothole and a paper cut.
This will be rejected just like the most recent school bonds
Just got a nice, thick stock, glossy 4-color illegal political ad from the City Council advocating for passing of their tax. Indiscernible from other political literature around election time.
Send it in to FFFF and we’ll post it up.
Serious?
Have you tried to get the cops to do their jobs lately? The heroes have realized that they don’t need to enforce any laws or do anything at all and they will still get stooge clowncil-persons to approve raises even where there is no funds. Shameful
Pay raise after pay raise for employees? I’m an employee and I haven’t had a pay raise in over a decade. I’ve taken quite a few pay cuts, but haven’t seen a raise, yet. Can you please tell me when that happened?
Liar.
Oh, absolutely a liar.
The only way this is even possible is if this employee’s salary is beyond the maximum for the role as approved by the Council. That would only occur if said employee was demoted from a higher paying band into the current one.
So let’s assume that’s true, the better question is why hasn’t the city fired your over compensated ass and hired a significantly cheaper replacement?
If he/she is the top step which in Fullerton is a step 6 then That person has not seen an increase. There’s not another step above that to go into.
This ballot initiative should be renamed as the Police and Fire Union Paycheck and Pension Protection Act.
Vote NO! I would but the Fullerton Police Department made sure I could never vote again.