The Ojai Post

Enrollment is down 1000 students over the past 8-10 years - it's time to close a school and consolidate resources. They tried before, not too long ago, to ram this parcel tax through, but it failed. Punishing property owners is not the answer. Kids can't get a quality education with a tax.

Demographics show that the downward trend of the past decade is reversing sharply. Those 1,000 kids will be replaced and then some. $89.00 per year for those under 65 who own property is not a lot of money. Schools have been traditionally funded by property taxes, this is not a new or radical solution. If you really hate the idea of paying that extra $89.00 per year, just go down and have your property reappraised by the county. The value of your property has likely dropped more than 25% in the last year and a half. The new tax rate based on the lower value of your property will more than make up for the $89.00.

I bought my house in the nineties, so my value has not gone below what I bought it for. I do think taxes should pay for schools, I just don't agree with this particular parcel tax. And I think that the maybe/someday increase in enrollment does not justify keeping schools open that currently don't have kids in them.

$89 more a year is not so easy for today's Ojai working families to necessarily come up with. There are a large number of families who have bought a home in the last few years who barely have food on the table right now.

Also, why exempt those over 65? These homeowners are the most likely to have extraordinarily low property taxes already, and be most likely to have savings and assets permitting them to afford this tax hike. They are also more likely to be insulated from the current downturn, since they are less likely to depend on a job or have the rising expenses of a family to feed.

Seems to me you would increase both the fairness and likelihood of passing the tax if you put a means-tested exemption on it, and then applied the tax to all homeowners.

Finally, consider that there is plenty of administrative fat to trim from Ojai Unified still. It is very hard to support paying more to bail out a school district that has cut teaching and programs while leaving unnecessary admin in place.

I'm reading all the comments with great interest. My 86-year old dad says so long as he sees the Nordhoff parking lot filled with teenagers driving new cars to school he's not voting for any parcel tax. He says if they can afford to make car payments they can help pay for their education...

They should sell parking permits - they would make a ton!

It is against the law to charge K-12 students for their education.

Yeah, you're right. We should just cancel public education and make people pay for it individually like medical insurance. Just roll up the whole public education thing altogether. I mean. What's to learn. The Earth's only six thousand years old anyway. And the rapture's going to happen any day now. Just as long as I keep all my equity and my house doesn't drop in value, who cares about fucking education.

It is against the law to means test a parcel tax.

I care about education.

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