Self Serving Sales Tax Supporters Return the Favors

At the top of the list is downtown powerhouse AEG with a $100,000 donation, a small price to pay for the hundreds of millions, if not billions, it expects to coin from the proposed development of Farmers Field in downtown Los Angeles and its rollover effect on LA Live, its billion dollar development.

And at $25,000, we have JH Snyder, a big time real estate developer who has a major project in Herb Wesson’s Council District located at Vermont and Wilshire. This development has benefited from favorable zoning and $17 million in loans arranged by the City.

The California Association of Realtors has also tossed in $10,000, a mere pittance compared to the savings they saved by having the Documentary Transfer Tax replaced by the permanent half cent increase in our already regressive sales tax to a job crippling 9.5%, one of the highest rates in the country.

Other $25,000 contributors include Excel Paving, a City contractor, and Crew Knitwear, a frequent contributor to the pet causes of our money grubbing Elected Elite.

These shenanigans are reminiscent of Measure B, the Mayor’s 2009 Solar Initiative, that was a payback for campaign funding Union Bo$$ d’Arcy’s $400,000 contribution to the Mayor’s 2005 war chest.

And do not forget the contributions by the Teamsters Union that resulted in the Exclusive Trash Franchise that will end up costing the businesses, apartment owners, and eventually the residents of Los Angeles $150 million a year.

Who said the Herb Wesson led City Council wasn’t for sale?

(Jack Humphreville writes LA Watchdog for CityWatch. He is the President of the DWP Advocacy Committee, the Ratepayer Advocate for the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, and a Neighborhood Council Budget Advocate. Humphreville is the publisher of the Recycler Classifieds -- www.recycler.com. He can be reached at: [email protected])
-cw