September 22, 2009 Clinton Baller As a potential contributor, I would like to know more about the person or organization that is requesting the funding and that would do the reporting. I will not contribute unless I am confident that the reporting will be top-notch, well-edited (by whom?) and completed on time (a schedule would help).
Clinton,
Benjamin Mark Cole is a well-respected, veteran journalist with experience at the Herald-Examiner and the L.A. Business Journal. The story will be edited by Jerry Sullivan of the Los Angeles Garment & Citizen and Labeez.org. You can check www.garmentandcitizen.com for examples of Sullivan's editing, as well as his writing, which is featured in the weekly Commentary. The Garment & Citizen was designated as the best source of news for Downtown in the 2006 "Best of L.A." edition of LA Weekly, and Sullivan has won honors from the California Newspaper Publishers Association in each of the past 2 yeears. You can visit www.labeez.org for examples of the work the organization is doing in bringing various community newspapers together in a collaborative effort.
Where do you hope to publish this, and have you tried to sell it directly to a publication rather than go through this site?
This story will be published in the Los Angeles Garment & Citizen and on
the Labeez.org site, which will make it available to the various community
newspapers involved in that collaborative effort.
The Garment & Citizen has strong readership and a strong track record for
coverage of Downtown and surrounding districts, such as Echo Park, Angeleno
Heights, Westlake, etc.
The story has been planned for the Garment & Citizen and Labeez.org and
will be reported by Bejamin Mark Cole on a freelance basis.
I want to point out that the headlining article presents a one sided bias to this story. Anybody reading it would find it ridiculous (including myself) that the country clubs for the rich throughout LA pay un-proportionately small amounts of property taxes compared to the value of the property.
However, I find it imperative that this article and headlining story present the other side of the story. That Prop 13 was enacted to keep
Naturally, like any law, some recipients are undeserving and fall within the loophole. However, if Prop 13 is revoked the most affected group of people would be middle class homeowners who will be squeezed even further when being forced to pay property taxes exceedingly higher (depending on how long they have been in their current house). A country club will be able to come up with the funds due to its wealthy patrons. But a middle class homeowner will be the one punished by being unable to pay his property taxes leading to tax liens and ultimately foreclosure.
This other side of the story must be focused on as well.
Excellent points, Warren. The story's main focus will be the "loophole"--as
you put it--that allows some entities to maintain pre-Prop 13 rates. The
story will, indeed, address the basic aspect of Prop 13, and the history
that brought it about when many middle-class homeowners felt financially
threatened by high property taxes.
The story will also likely look at ideas to revise Prop 13 without repealing the core of law that is designed to protect everyday homeowners. Another aspect of the story will look at how Prop 13 has affected economic development, making cities and counties eager for retail development that brings sales taxes to supplant property taxes. We expect to delve into how that might have helped erode other aspects of the economy, such as light manufacturing.
I'd like to see the story take the opposite tack as Warren, and question whether Prop 13 is justified even for residential owners. We have very high sales taxes in the state. We have relatively high income taxes, and a prosperous business sector. Why then do we have extraordinary deficits? I'd argue that Prop 13, by forcing recent property purchasers and renters to subsidize longtime commercial property owners and homeowners, is the major source of the problem. (And of course requiring a 2/3 supermajority to raise taxes, is even more foolish).
Look at this '03 LA Times article pointing out that Disneyland and Capitol Records were paying a nickel and a dime per square foot in property taxes -- while more recent commercial property purchasers are paying between $5 - 10 per square foot: http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jun/30/local/me-property30
Here's a bracing thesis: allowing longtime property owners to have their cake and eat it too -- by having high levels of government service without having to pay for it -- Prop 13 is burying California in debt and crippling cuts to public service. What do you say, LA Beez?
That's all on the table. The "tack" that this story takes will be a circumspect examination of the facts about Prop 13 and its effects, as well as various viewpoints on the matter. This will be a fair look at the whole picture. It appears that the current budget mess has prompted some folks to raise some questions about Prop 13, which has been poltically off limits for years. Now some are wondering if we might be able to afford to keep Prop 13 in place for everyday homeowners if we amended the law to prevent the "loopholes" that Warrn H. mentioned earlier. Others believe that we have to rethink the whole matter. And still others claim that politicians have created a crisis with irresponsible spending and some will now try to exploit a crisis by rolling back Prop 13. We aim to give all of that a fair hearing.
Well, there is something haywire with some of these commercial property taxes and it needs to be addressed. Thing is, like Andrew says, you can find those articles in the LA Times.
Look at California's tax environment. Our property tax rate is the only thing that keeps us on the average. We have close to the highest sales, personal income and corporate income taxes in the country. I don't see how a 2/3 supermajority is thwarting tax increases when we have these high tax rates.
What bugs me about Prop 13 is that the revenue goes to Sacramento and then is doled out to the Counties from there. It's difficult to keep an eye what's going on when you're hundreds of miles away from the Capitol. Irresponsible spending, I'll tell you. Irresponsible spending, by jiminey. It's irresponsible spending to back this story. Hahaha. No, I don't know. Give 'em hell.
Don't you people have Lexis/Nexis? A quick search shows what taxes the Country Club paid.
If you guys hope to attract a sophisticated readership, you need to do better than this.
I'm not clear on what you are criticizing. It's apparent that amounts of property assessments are available--we cite the amount that the Brentwood Country Club pays as part of the pitch.
Getting a handle on whether there's a basis for any legal challenge to Prop 13 as it relates to the ownership structures of country clubs is another matter, and so is an examination of the political climate as it relates to Prop 13's long-standing status as untouchable in California. There are various other aspects of the story that will require scrutiny, as well. The fact that the information on the levels of property tax assessments for Country clubs is generally available and there has yet to be significant coverage of any of those attendent aspects is all the more reason to do this story, in my view.
Jerry Sullivan
I would like to answer some of the comments, all of which are insightful.
Yes, property taxes are public record. The huge country clubs--Brentwood, Wilshire, Bel-Air, Hillcrest etc -- pay about $100k in property taxes. They are assessed at $10 million and less. Remember, these clubs have more than 100 acres each, in West Los Angeles. Just eight acres, entitled, sold for $500 million in Beverly Hills in 2007. The membership fees for a single joiner are higher than what they pay in annual property taxes.
Secondly, membership and thus ownership in the clubs has turned over since 1978. Members own the clubs. So the ownership has changed! Still, under an interpretation of Prop 13, they are free and clear. They will pay miniscule property taxes in perpetuity.
I expect that sort of treatment in colonial Panama--but in modern-day Los Angeles?
This is actually not a general assault on Prop 13. What the story suggests is upzoning 10 percent of the country clubs property, to highest and best use. Most probably high-rise mixed use, in exchange for turning the other 90 percent into public parks. We are talking about creating mini-Central Parks, probably of incredible value, paying huge property taxes, and yet adding to city amenities.
Note to Bart Scrivner---if you can use Lexis-Nexis to verify what the clubs pay in porperty taxes, I would like to talk to you. My data is a year old, and there are some "squiggles" in it. 213 259 5598.
Country Clubs are protected by the California constitution. They ae taxed on the value of the course as a golf course, not for what it's value would be for other uses, i.e. housing, commercial, industrial. This may add another angle to your story or maybe kill it. And by the way, you're talking about seizing private property. At least be honest. Below is the constitution amendment, which passed in 1960, with more than 60% of the vote. Btw, I am a barber shop owner and it took me about seven minutes to figure this out on google.
CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE 13 TAXATION
SEC. 10. Real property in a parcel of 10 or more acres which, on
the lien date and for 2 or more years immediately preceding, has been
used exclusively for nonprofit golf course purposes shall be
assessed for taxation on the basis of such use, plus any value
attributable to mines, quarries, hydrocarbon substances, or other
minerals in the property or the right to extract hydrocarbons or
other minerals from the property.
Prop 13 was a Trojan Horse sold by multi-millionaire racist Howard Jarvis to an unsuspecting public. Sure it kept taxes super low for widows in 2 bedroom bungalows, but it also "protected" gigantic corporate landowners like Chevron from fair property taxation.......as well as millionaire multi-unit apartment owners like Jarvis himself! Jarvis argued that the landlords' tax savings would be passed on to renters in the form of lower rents. They weren't. Here's one of the real consequences of Howard's "reform": California, which was 9th in public education quality and funding at the time Prop 13 was passed, has plunged to the bottom, 47th or thereabouts, down with semi-literate, ex-slave, failed states like Alabama & Mississippi.
