The next big election day is less than 100 days away and it is raising all kinds of fears that, once again, us voters and taxpayers will be asked all the wrong questions and almost none of the right ones.
The Nov. 6 local and state ballots will be filled with questions about increasing our taxes and voting for billion-dollar bonds that will take decades to pay off. Maybe these are for good causes like repairing schools and building affordable housing, but maybe some of us voters have better ideas about how we want to spend our taxes.
Nobody is asking us, because that’s not how elections are shaped. Elected officials in Sacramento already know how they want to spend the proposed $4 billion housing bond money on the November 6 ballot; they just need us voters to check the right box.
The same goes for the $4 billion water project bond, the $2 billion homeless services bond and the $1.5 billion children’s hospital bond. That adds up to $11.5 billion of blind faith and blind government.
How come we never get asked about the bonds or tax increases we voted for just a few years ago? Why don’t we get asked: “How’s that working for you?” What happened to the $12 billion in water project, housing and school bonds we passed a few years ago? Isn’t there always a big school bond on every ballot lately? Aren’t we being asked to increase the sales tax almost twice annually?
We’re not saying we’re opposed to new affordable housing programs or investing in our local schools, roads, parks or libraries. We’re just saying we don’t like being asked a limited “yes or no” question.
Why not ask about other ideas or needs we might have? How about a ballot where voters get to rank their spending priorities from “most urgent” to “not one more dime.” Lots of times, even our most locally elected officials don’t make the effort to ask us what we really think.
Speaking of local officials, Town of Windsor voters will be selecting three new town council members this November. Three school board seats and two fire district seats also will be on the November 6 ballot. We don’t want more “yes or no” candidates. We should elect the best listeners and new community leaders who are already asking “why” and “why not?”
If you think showing up at city hall or local board meetings is enough, you’re sadly mistaken. You won’t find much creative thinking or problem solving at these meetings. These forums are mostly evenings full of posturing, quarreling and amateurish testimony.
That’s why attendance at the many upcoming Windsor candidates’ nights and forums is extra important.
We desperately need better ways to plan and pay for our future. We are living in rapidly changing times. Our local communities have changing needs and new priorities. When do we get to talk about that? Who’s making a list?
Most schools in Sonoma County have declining student enrollments, so why do we have bigger and bigger school bonds? We know we need to make major and unprecedented expenditures for fire prevention and protection, but we have a 1950s-era emergency services bureaucracy that needs to be scrapped and replaced.
We keep complaining about potholes and gas taxes when we should be plotting an infrastructure makeover that serves our renewable energy, low-pollution and artificial intelligence-led future.
We spend lots of taxes on social services, and we know lots of it is ineffective or unaccounted for. Besides a homeless problem, we have other growing needs like mental health programs, elder support and lack of living wages.
In other words, there’s no shortage of good questions.
