‘Split roll’ gets an endorsement + Betty Yee opposes a public bank + Backing for Prop 22
Good morning and happy Thursday! What a week it’s been, huh? As always, thank you for reading.
STEINBERG ENDORSES ‘SPLIT ROLL’
Via Matt Kristoffersen...
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg is getting behind a California ballot initiative that would raise property taxes on businesses and bring in billions of dollars every year for public services.
The measure – arriving on November’s ballot as Proposition 15 – would end restrictions on assessments for commercial property worth more than $3 million, allowing them to be taxed based on their current value instead of their purchase price.
The “split-roll” initiative would exempt residential property and small businesses, meaning they would continue to be assessed at their purchase price.
The concept represents a break from California’s 1978 property tax law, Proposition 13, which prohibits new assessments unless a property changes ownership.
OPPOSITION TO A PUBLIC BANK
California shouldn’t join North Dakota in creating its own public bank, State Controller Betty Yee argues in a letter to Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, who chairs the Senate Governance and Finance Committee.
In the letter, Yee called AB 310, which would turn the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank into a public depository institution, a “proposal (that) is fraught with risk.”
In her letter, Yee listed several criticisms of the proposal.
For one thing, the bill would undermine the intent of the Pooled Money Investment Account, “which is – among other things – the state’s general fund,” Yee wrote.
She added that using that account as both the state’s checkbook and as capital for a public bank “would affect the safety and liquidity of the PMIA, and threaten my team’s ability to manage the state’s cash flow.”
AB 310 also wouldn’t require the public bank to get Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insurance, Yee wrote, instead allowing the bank to self-insure “and leave taxpayers on the hook for all the risk.”
Finally, she said AB 310 doesn’t follow the Federal Reserve’s best practices for governance structure, “which would help avoid conflicts and politicization of lending decisions.”
“I am mindful of the intent to provide equitable access to financing for small and minority-owned businesses. Unfortunately, AB 310 is not the solution,” Yee wrote. “The Legislature could address this more directly by prioritizing such financing through the annual budget process.”
AN ENDORSEMENT FOR PROP 22
Proposition 22, a response to AB 5 that would reclassify rideshare drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft as independent contractors, just received an endorsement from the National Black Chamber of Commerce.
The NBCC joins the California-Hawaii State Conference of the NAACP, the California National Action Network and the California Urban Partnership and other groups in endorsing the ballot measure.
Supporters of Proposition 22 argue that app-based driving jobs provide opportunities for low-income and minority Californians, and point to a study from Berkeley Research Group that states that an employee-based model would lead to the loss of up to 900,000 jobs in the state.
“We are being threatened with Assembly Bill 5 (AB5). This threatens to take away the right of Californians to work as independent contractors with flexible schedules with app-based platforms and would force them to become employees with flat wages and set schedules,” co-founders Harry Alford and Kay DeBow wrote in a letter endorsing the measure. “An employee model would also greatly limit the availability of these services, resulting in lost work opportunities and reduced access to rideshare and delivery services that many minority communities have grown to rely on.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Another murder of a trans woman, this time in Imperial County. This press report avoids pronouns, thus effectively misgendering her. The epidemics of trans people being murdered + trans people being treated with profound disrespect must end.”
– Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, via Twitter.
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