A Correction is In Order – Letter to the El Segundo Herald by Mike Robbins

The following letter to the editor was published in the El Segundo Herald newspaper (HeraldPublications.com) on Thursday, March 13, 2014 in the Letters section on page 7. The El Segundo Herald has a strict 250-word limit, including the title.

However, the El Segundo Herald editor omitted the third paragraph because it referenced a web site.

A Correction is In Order

The 3/6/14 Herald article, “Council Holds Off on Rec and Parks Fee Decision”, contained misinformation. City property tax revenue is more than $6 million – not about $1 million as the author misinterpreted from Mayor Fisher’s obfuscation.

The property tax revenue numbers I cited at the 3/4/14 Council meeting are from official City of El Segundo public record documents and are presumably correct. Based on those documents, I stated during the meeting that El Segundo property tax revenue for fiscal year 2012/13 was more than $6.3 million, is at a record high for at least since FY 2000/01, is 46% and about $2 million higher than FY 2000/01, has had an average annual increase of 3.6% and more than $166,000 per year, and has increased in 9 of the last 13 fiscal years.

See the article, “Wrong Time to Raise Taxes and Fees in El Segundo”, at PublicSafetyProject.org. In includes a bar chart showing property tax revenue from FY 2000/01 through 2012/13, the data for that chart, and a link to the City public record document that is the source of that data.

Fisher wants voters to believe property tax revenue is to blame, not big pay raises. Fisher’s number only includes residential property tax revenue to minimize tax revenue and because of his misguided and unsound belief that residents don’t pay enough taxes. Residents pay business taxes that are passed on to them as customers, and defense contractors are paid from our federal income taxes.

Mike Robbins