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(February 26, 2002) On Tuesday, March 5, Santa Cruz County voters will go to the polls. The central issue of concern on the ballot is Measure L. Why? Please follow me carefully.

A ‘yes’ vote on Measure L will repeal and eliminate the abusive and illegally instituted, ten-year-old utility users tax.

It is illegal because the law states that only the voters can decide on the merits of such a tax. That never happened.

Instead, the supervisors in office at the time simply ordered the citizens to pay the tax. Un-American? You bet!

But they got away with it for ten years! This utility users tax is charged at the rate of seven percent on top of already huge actual charges for water, sewage, garbage, electricity, natural gas, cable TV, and telephone charges. This evil, unnecessary tax on necessities of life that people MUST USE on a daily basis, generates about ten million dollars per year, or, on a more personal level, it costs each family about 260 extra dollars per year. This money goes into the county’s general fund and therefore may be used at the discretion of the county administrators.

Last year, the general fund was budgeted at 395 million dollars. After all county expenses were paid, there remained a surplus of 32 million dollars.

A ‘yes’ vote on Measure L will remove that ten million dollars generated by the illegal utility users tax, and STILL leave a surplus of 22 million dollars.

Now the supervisors are desperately mounting a well organized, well thought out SPIN campaign to defeat Measure L. They have gotten used to having this extra ten million dollars of surplus play money for the past ten years, so now they’re having tantrums, crying poverty, shedding crocodile tears, and using scare tactics and threatening innocent and uninformed taxpayers that if Measure L passes, many much-needed programs will be eliminated.

This is a blatant lie! Once again, we are being snookered by these administrators and their ilk. And sadly, also much of the media, knowingly or unknowingly, are a party to this canard. While these bleeding hearts, supposed do-gooders are righteously wringing their hands and scaring the people, AT THE VERY SAME TIME, they are busy voting themselves obscene salary raises and padding their retirement pensions, so that by the time they leave office, their pensions will be almost as large as their salaries!

How about a few documented examples? The County Administrative Officer, known as the ‘CAO,’ in February 2001 received a salary of $147,512. In February 2003, her salary will jump up to $190,500, an increase of $43,308 over a two-year period. Not exactly a reasonable yearly cost-of-living increase. Oh yes, the CAO ALSO will receive an additional BONUS of $7,056!

Over 160 county employees make in excess of $100,000 per year, and they retire at 95 percent of their pay? And our supervisors, they are voting themselves a $30,000 pay increase to $91,000 per year. And the list of excesses goes on and on. It’s really sad and disheartening how power, especially long-time, entrenched power, can corrupt and make perhaps otherwise good people cruel, greedy, insensitive, and uncaring.

What is so tragic about the actions of these administrators is that they show no qualms about financing their obscene raises with the very same money they claim will be taken away from hungry children, the elderly, the poor, and the disabled. I hope by now you get the picture.

Let’s go to the polls on March 7, and vote ‘yes’ on Measure L and eliminate the abusive, unnecessary, illegal utility users tax. Much of the material in this editorial was supplied to me by two very special local heroes in our community.

They are Steve Hartman and Ed Mazenko. These two gentlemen are a credit to us. We are DEEPLY indebted to them for working for us TIRELESSLY for years to try to keep our leaders honest, and keep the electorate informed.

If you wish to view details of the individual increases being paid to the top 35 county positions, log on to www.sccu tilitytax.com. To co nclude, KSCO and KOMY endorse a ‘yes’ vote on measure L, a ‘yes’ vote for Mark Primack for supervisor, and a ‘yes’ vote for Kate Canlis for District Attorney.