The stealth attack on Prop 13 - Pothole edition

While Sacramento spends your hard-earned money on a bullet train to Bakersfield, the streets in the Valley are cracked and crumbling. Now Los Angeles has proposed to do something about it.

Well, they've proposed studying something to do about it.

What they want to study is a plan to stick homeowners with the bill for $3 billion in street repairs over ten years.

The idea is to issue bonds for L.A. street repair and add the cost to your property tax bill. Proponents think it will "only" be $28 per year.

Under Prop 13, the street-repair bonds would have to be approved by two-thirds of the voters.

But under the proposed Assembly Constitutional Amendment (ACA) 8, passed on a Saturday -- with no votes to spare -- just before Bob Blumenfield resigned to join the L.A. City Council, the street-repair bonds would pass with the approval of only 55 percent of the voters.

Right now, ACA 8 is awaiting action in the state Senate.

So are six other proposals to lower the vote needed to pass bonds and parcel taxes. They'd change Proposition 13 to require just 55 percent of voters to approve bonds for transportation, libraries, community development, and -- you'll love this, SCA 11 -- any purpose at all.

Just $28 here, just $28 there, just another penny on the sales tax, just another 2 percent for electricity and water, and pretty soon you have to sell your home because you can't afford to live in it even if it's paid off.

Already the DWP bills in the summertime are like a human rights violation.

Personally, I'm tired of our government officials wasting money on bloated salaries for bureaucrats and shiny monuments to themselves like bullet trains.

I'm running for the state Assembly, and I will vote NO to any attempt to make it easier to raise property taxes. I will work to make energy and water more affordable, instead of pursuing policies that amount to conservation through economic hardship.

There will be a special election on September 17. Tell your friends and neighbors about it. Watch the mail for your sample ballot booklet. If you're not registered to vote, pick up the form at any post office or go online to www.LAVOTE.net. If your friends or family members are not registered to vote, call them up and tell them it's time.

Everybody off the couch, we're going to save California.