As Councilwoman Sheng Thao campaigns to be the following mayor of Oakland, she ought to know the small print, or no less than the basics, of the $850 million bond measure she and 6 of her council colleagues voted to placed on the identical election poll.
However when requested about Measure U in our endorsement interview final week, she didn’t perceive how the measure would work and grossly understated the tax property homeowners can be required to pay.
The encounter exemplifies why Thao is just not prepared to guide a metropolis of 450,000 individuals that's confronting a 24% improve in homelessness over the past three years, homicides in 2021 that hit the best degree in 15 years, and insufficient police staffing. A metropolis the place, regardless of sturdy basic fund tax revenues, leaders maintain coming again to voters each election 12 months for brand new tax hikes.
Thao is the candidate most labor unions and the town’s hard-left faction are trumpeting within the Nov. 8 election to exchange Mayor Libby Schaaf, who has served the utmost two phrases. Thao’s tenure on the council has been regarding. Most notably, she is among the many council majority that has squeezed police funding and slow-walked Schaaf’s proposal to extend the variety of coaching academies wanted to hurry up hiring of officers.
Prefer it or not, Thao’s place on legislation enforcement appears considered one of coverage that's rigorously politically calculated in a metropolis that’s divided on the difficulty. In distinction, the dialogue of the upcoming bond measure merely reveals how uninformed she is.
Thao boasts that 4 years on the Metropolis Council and 4 prior years serving as coverage director after which chief of employees for Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan have ready her to be mayor. But, when requested about Measure U, Thao was clueless.
VIDEO: Oakland Mayoral Candidate Sheng Thao’s endorsement interview
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She claimed the measure would price property homeowners $198 a 12 months; truly, for most householders the levy can be way more. She claimed the tax can be the identical for all property homeowners; truly, it could differ relying on the assessed worth. She claimed Measure U was merely an extension of an present tax; truly, it’s a brand new tax piled on prime of an analogous outdated one.
She claimed it could be regressive, proportionately hurting those that may least afford it essentially the most; truly, metropolis officers selected Measure U’s tax technique as a result of it was the less-regressive possibility. And, echoing a misleading speaking level of Measure U supporters, she claimed it could not improve taxes. Flawed once more.
Thao even appeared unsure about how voter-approved bond measures work. Requested how they're normally paid off, she responded, “Metropolis income.” Nope. Voter-approved bond measures equivalent to Measure U require property tax will increase to repay the debt.
Property tax fundamentals
Thao desires to guide the Bay Space’s third-largest metropolis. Voters deserve a mayor who understands the fundamentals of taxes that metropolis residents are being requested to pay. It ought to be bare-minimum information to qualify for the job.
Listed here are the basics that, after eight years in metropolis authorities, Thao ought to know. There are two major kinds of voter-approved property tax will increase. One is a normally flat annual levy, typically referred to as a parcel tax, for a particular goal or to complement a metropolis’s basic fund. That’s what Thao wrongly claimed Measure U is.
The opposite kind is a tax proportional to the assessed worth of the property. The upper the assessed worth of a home, the higher the annual tax. The cash is used to repay over many years bonds the town points for a particular goal. Measure U is such a bond measure.
Metropolis officers estimate that the property tax to repay the Measure U bonds can be a median $67.35 per $100,000 of assessed worth and final about 40 years. For a house with a median assessed worth of about $500,000, that works out to about $337 per 12 months.
One motive metropolis officers opted to make use of a bond measure for Measure U is that the related taxes are thought of extra “progressive” — these with higher assessed property values pay extra. (To make certain, below California’s arcane property tax system, assessed worth typically doesn’t replicate the precise worth of property.) In distinction, a flat parcel tax would have been a higher proportional burden on these with much less means — it could have been extra “regressive.”
Thao mentioned she wasn’t positive she was going to assist Measure U although she had voted to place it on the poll, after which mentioned, “I’m truly not a fan of regressive taxing.” That reply would make sense if Measure U have been a flat parcel tax. It isn’t.
Measure U particulars
Requested how a lot she thought the tax can be, Thao mentioned, “I imagine it’s $200” after which added with amusing, “or $198 as a result of it polls higher.”
Thao additionally mentioned that Measure U wouldn't increase taxes as a result of it was a renewal, at “the identical quantity,” of Measure KK, authorised by voters in 2016 additionally to fund roads and housing. “They’re not elevating taxes as a result of it’s already an ongoing tax on it proper now. It’s only a renewal, proper.”
Thao is appropriate that Measure U would go for a similar functions as Measure KK. She’s incorrect that it’s merely an extension and that it could not increase taxes.
Like Measure U, Measure KK was a bond measure, not, as Thao claimed, a parcel tax. The continued annual taxes for reimbursement of the Measure KK bonds are projected to final by way of 2053. The taxes for reimbursement of Measure U bonds would start in 2024, ramp up considerably in 2027 and final till 2062.
Thus, Measure U taxes wouldn't be a alternative for Measure KK; they'd be piled on prime. Metropolis projections present that property tax funds for the 2 measures mixed, for a median dwelling assessed at $500,000, would leap to roughly $500 yearly early within the subsequent decade
The reimbursement construction for Measure U may keep away from a internet tax improve for property homeowners. However not for the rationale Thao claims.
Slightly, in 2026, a tax to assist repay police and firefighter pension liabilities that date again greater than half a century is meant to finish. The pension tax is the only largest supplemental levy on Oakland property tax payments. As soon as that’s paid off, Oakland property homeowners ought to get a long-overdue tax discount.
However, if Measure U passes, Oakland officers would ramp up these new taxes in 2027 — carving away at taxpayers’ financial savings from the pension tax elimination. That’s the convoluted rationale Measure U backers use to say that it could not be a tax improve.
There are good causes to oppose Measure U, however not as a result of it’s regressive. Clearly, Thao didn’t perceive the measure when she voted to position it on the poll. And she or he nonetheless didn’t perceive it when she was interviewed final week.
Now she desires voters to reward that incompetence by electing her mayor.