With the interminable glut of tax talk that is choking the clouded air this month, you would think every day is April 15.
Speaking in bold-faced language, Los Angeles City Council members Eric Garcetti and Jan Perry, running hard for higher office, boasted yesterday at a mayoralty debate in Koreatown that they had voted against the Council’s proposed half-cent sales tax hike the day before.
For them, the greater risk probably would have been voting affirmatively for Council President Herb Wesson’s controversial initiative that passed big, 10 to 4. Their names will be on the same March 5 primary election ballot as the Wesson tax.
Stoutly Against
“I opposed the proposed ballot initiative because it is going to cost us more money,” said Mr. Garcetti. “It would take at least 15 years before we start seeing any money from it.”
The first words out of Ms. Perry were that she voted hard against the Wesson plan, too.
Keeping in mind that both of them, along with City Controller Wendy Greuel, a former Councilperson, are supported by labor unions, Kevin James, the only non-liberal contender in the mayoralty race, was skeptical about the liberals’ voluble opposition to the sales tax, especially on the campaign trail.
“They talk about the elimination of these taxes, but just yesterday through the City Council a new sales tax pass (en route to the ballot),” Mr. James said.
“What is that going to do to businesses in the city of Los Angeles that they say they want to help?
” Then Mr. James laid down a challenge to his three rivals:
No Response
“Their city union bosses will not let them campaign against that tax proposal.”
Ms. Greuel, Ms. Perry and Mr. Garcetti did not dispute Mr. James’s dare.
In other venues away from their rivals, Mr. James said the candidates talk more candidly and differently than when they are together.
“Our city is in crisis,” said the former federal prosecutor. “We have a jobs crisis. We have a budget crisis. We have an education crisis. We have an infrastructure crisis, a transportation crisis, a corruption crisis and a growth of a public safety crisis.
“Just last week, Councilwoman Jan Perry gave a speech where she admitted the city is on the verge of bankruptcy.”
Guess who brought the to this cliff’s edge? he asked. His three opponents who have been in office throughout the past decade. “They have run City Hall – they are at the helm of city government,” Mr. James said, suggesting their policies have created the multiple crises they now propose, straight-faced, to fix, as if they just happened to walk by and notice how much had gone wrong.
“Councilman Garcetti admitted in a speech a few weeks ago that City Hall is broken.
“Speaking of bankruptcy, their decisions over a decade, what the Wall Street Journal calls a Decade of Decline, has brought us to the cliff’s edge.
“Controller Greuel has been the city’s chief accountant the last four years as we have gotten closer and closer.”
On the same day that former Mayor Dick Riordan agreed to debate a police union leader over his idea for replacing guaranteed pensions for future city workers with a 401(k)-style retirement plan, the candidates divided on it.
Mr. James said he will support it if it is on the ballot, the others demurred.
Mr. Riordan has promised to decide by Dec. 7 whether to continue seeking signatures to qualify it for the primary election.
