Hacker News Reader

Comment by darth_avocado | Hacker News Reader

Oakland just shut down 2 Fire Stations in the hills where the risk of fires is the highest, with up to 7 more on the horizon due to budget cuts.

https://www.kqed.org/news/12021505/a-tragedy-waiting-to-happ...

In fact the station that responded first to the fires of last October was the one cut.

https://oaklandside.org/2024/10/22/oakland-budget-cuts-firef...

The government officials argue that there is no money, but in reality, almost every department is seeing budget increases other than the fire department. The city administrators are getting 3x the money than last budget. California leaders are the absolute bottom of the barrel.

Edit: this just from yesterday https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/response-time-for-oaklan...

View on HN

The government officials argue that there hasn't been any budget cut or mismanagement, they made an entire website about it: www.californiafirefacts.com

Though, charitably, I suppose the city-level mismanagement that you're talking about do not directly contradict gavin's claims about state/federal level cuts. Maybe.

Prop 13 is the third rail of California politics that is choking the state.

Until someone is willing to grab the nettle and fix the property tax situation to be fair and equitable to everyone then California cities are eventually going to run out of money to maintain infrastructure.

> Prop 13

Presumably it's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13

> Proposition 13 (officially named the People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation) is an amendment of the Constitution of California enacted during 1978, by means of the initiative process, to cap property taxes and limit property reassessments to when the property changes ownership, and to require a 2/3 majority for tax increases in the state legislature.

Yes, that Prop 13.

The insidious part is that commercial real estate in California is paying the same rates as they were when the building was built, despite the fact that the value of the building has increased many times since and the building "changing" ownership many times since.

The second insidious part is that because of the enhancements to the tax code over the years it's possible to continue to pay 1978 property tax rates in perpetuity, and even pass those rates on to your descendants. You can even transfer those super low rates to a new property in some cases.

New buyers get screwed because they will be paying at today's rates. So you could be paying 10x more property tax as your neighbor for the same city services.

Public employee unions are the third rail of California politics that are choking the state. Central Valley farmers are the third rail of California politics that are choking the state. High-speed rail is the third rail of California politics that is choking the state. Free government services for illegal aliens are the third rail of California politics that are choking the state. We have plenty of rails, take your pick.

Fairness and equity are highly subjective. If you ask any Californian they will say that someone else should pay higher taxes. I support reform of the property tax system in general but let's not forget what triggered Proposition 13 in the first place: it was a taxpayer revolt against uncontrolled and unaccountable increases in local government spending. So any reform will still require an effective means of constraining government budgets. Otherwise we'll just end up back where we started.

Prop 13 applies to commercial real estate as well as residential.

The commercial part should be removed to increase tax income.

Prop 13 may be a part of the problem, but not the biggest. The biggest problem is the same as all the other cities without prop 13 in the country that have budget issues: pensions.

A lot of government officials abuse the system and get exhorbidant pensions, especially when early retirement options start at 50.

Can’t really speak about the entire state but in Oakland’s case, it is absolutely budget cuts. And closing 2 fire stations in the most fire prone area, where a recent major fire took place, can safely be called mismanagement.

Hypothetically speaking, if the event could be attributed to incompetence, mismanagement or malfeasance - Which incentives would drive elected officials or bureaucrats to take responsibility?

They’re not voted into office based on competency. The political offices are controlled by political machines; whomever has the support of the machine will likely win the election. So the incentive structure for the politicians is to optimize for the navigating the internal politics of the machine, not for competency. As long as you can’t be singled out for causing the machine too much embarrassment (and that might happen with Mayor Bass) there is no accountability.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com