When the San Diego city sales tax was first agreed to this week by the city council, there was a short “Breaking News” piece on the U-T website. The next day there were over 200 comments. But what struck me was the OVERWHELMING rejection of the tax by commenters. Normally there is a hyperactive cadre of government employees commenting away (often on govt time), but they seemed reticent to come out and play on this.
Then today (Sunday 8/8/10) the U-T published seven letters to the editor about the city sales tax increase — ALL opposed. And I didn’t write any of ’em!
The importance of these letters is that they reflect what the U-T RECEIVED in submitted letters on this topic. The paper tries to publish letters in rough ratio to the percent received from each side of an issue.
While many numb nuts will still vote for this sales tax increase, knowledgeable, literate people are more unified in their opposition than usually is the case.
Perhaps one reason the city employees didn’t write in letters to the editor is that — in such published letters — it would show that many don’t LIVE in the city of San Diego. MOST firefighters live elsewhere –many outside of the COUNTY. And firefighters (who have the most idle time of any occupation I can think of) are doubtless the ones who anonymously do most of the pro-pension, pro-tax writing on the blogs and comment sections.
I’m pretty confident we’ll win in November, but just winning isn’t enough. We need to CRUSH this tax increase so we can clear the way for the meaningful reforms that MUST come to our oozing city government.