Supporters of Measure “Z” are so emotionally committed to passing this excessive tax proposal, their reasoning appears impaired. Or just possibly, they believe their desire to force Measure “Z” on the rest of us somehow justifies any means necessary to get their way.
That evidently includes putting forth falsehoods meant to bamboozle and berate Wildomar’s property owners into taxing ourselves for something most of us neither want nor use.
100 supporters gathered at the park, some of them not old enough to vote, and that is hardly representative of Wildomar’s 32,000 people or our 14,224 currently registered voters.
What we have is a highly vocal, actively aggressive minority, led by a politician running for reelection, who wants to ram their desires down our throats.
Not only has the council skirted the law by spending $58,500.00 of our taxpayers’ money on dubious surveys and campaigning for Measure “Z”, but we are now being inundated with misleading campaign statements and expensive flyers the city and their consultants are having stuffed in our mailboxes.
Perhaps all that money would have been better spent paying off the overdue water and light bills for the parks!
Parks may be nice to have, but they are not necessities and neither are a bunch of city recreational programs. If passed, what Measure “Z” will do is increase the council’s wasteful spending and allow them to shift salaries and expenses from the General Fund Budget to any Parks Budget.
Worse yet are the recent Patch blog appeals from Measure “Z” proponents that just plain deceive voters about the supposed benefits of parks.
Wildomar’s 3 little parks aren’t going to help attract new homeowners, more businesses or increased revenues. And, having these parks open is not going to increase your property values. Don’t be fooled into believing these myths. The one true advantage Wildomar has in the housing market is a comparatively low property tax rate, and passing Measure “Z” surely would help negate that one advantage.
The city council’s hired guns - their highly paid consultants and attorneys - have crafted Measure “Z” language to allow the council to use park money for just about anything they want - simply by labeling those things “parks related” items.
Don’t get sucked into the fiction about the inflated benefits of either the parks or Measure “Z”. Supporters want you to vote for having increased parks programs and services that we don’t need and can’t afford. They would serve only a small percentage of the population at everyone else's expense.
Asking for more taxes now is a blatant abuse of the public trust. Faced with a multitude of new county, state and federal taxes and fee increases coming our way, we should reject Measure “Z”.
Besides, if you give in to the deceitful campaign tactics and bullying, you can be sure that the city will ask for more and bigger taxes in the future.
While John Lloyd’s two new blogs have supplied “per resident” costs for our neighboring cities, they only confuse the true issues. Wildomar can’t and doesn’t offer anything comparable in the number of parks, acres of parkland, or cultural and recreational services that these other cities offer – even if Wildomar residents were willing to pay for them.
“Comparatively, our neighboring City of Murrieta, which boasts 50 public parks covering nearly 600 acres, pays less than $5,000 per acre annually. The City of San Diego, pays less than $6,000 per acre annually to maintain roughly 40,000 acres of parkland.”
Wildomar has about 14 acres of parkland which includes 1 community park, and 2 much smaller neighborhood parks both without basic amenities. These 3 parks are all located in the extreme southwestern part of the city where only a very small percentage of the population utilizes them.
They provide little or nothing in the way of recreational opportunities for most other Wildomar residents – many of whom are already paying for their own parks through their development HOA fees.
So…
“At $350,000.00 annually to fund maintenance of these 3 parks totaling less than 15 acres, the equivalent of $25,000 per acre", Measure “Z” is not a good value for the majority of Wildomar’s taxpayers. It calls for at least 2 or 3 times the money required to maintain the parks.
These are current figures from our neighboring Southern California cities – not from huge, far away cities or from decades or a century ago!
“Measure “Z” would cost us 5 times the pre acre price Murrieta pays, over 4 times the per acre price San Diego pays to maintain public parks”. And, yes, I understand about the adjustments for size and scale, but that simply doesn’t justify Wildomar’s vast difference in per acre costs.
Voters need to take their blinders off, put aside their emotions, and take a good hard look at the real parks in our neighboring cities. And, remember you can't make a silk purse out of an old sow's ear - no matter how much money you throw at it.
Don't let that happen, ‘NO’ on Measure “Z.”
