Mayor to Peralta Colleges on LLAD:
Vote But Don't Pay

Both mayor Ron Dellums and city administrator Deborah Edgerly (since fired) told the Peralta college district that it would not have to pay the Landscape and Lighting Assessment tax (LLAD), while stressing how important it was that the Peralta district cast its votes to help impose a LLAD increase on homeowners.

As Peralta chancellor Elihu Harris explained to the board of trustees, "There are no provisions for collection of the money, which is their [City officials'] point, that if we didn't pay it, they have no way of making us pay. There's no provisions in [Prop.] 218 that require that entity to pay, unlike other property taxpayers where you can lien the property. There's no provisions against public entities that fail to pay, and they've requested we not pay." (All quotes are from public video of the Peralta May 20, 2008 board meeting)

As previously reported, the City invented votes out of thin air to declare a mail-in ballot on a $12 million LLAD increase successful. In July the city council, besieged by residents' outrage at the manipulations, suspended collection of the tax hike for the current fiscal year, but the council has so far refused to rescind its declaration that voters "passed" the increase.

The board of trustees of the Peralta Community College District, encompassing Laney, Merritt, the College of Alameda, and a facility in Berkeley, considered how to vote its LLAD ballot at the May 20, 2008 board meeting.

Mayor Dellums and then-administrator Edgerly pressured Peralta Colleges to participate in LLAD ballot rigging. (Photos: Oakland Tribune)

At first, board members were prepared to cast a No vote on the LLAD increase. Vice Chancellor Thomas Smith explained that in order to add a recurring tax payment of more that $225,000 a year, the district "would have to cut something else, cut classes, hire fewer full-time faculty or fewer full-time counselors. It's a lot of money. We're transferring money to the City, at the same time if the State wants to deficit us in the middle of the year for the $1.4 million shortfall in property taxes. The timing of this really kind of bothers me."

It was also noted that while the Peralta colleges might pay the City LLAD tax, the City does not pay taxes towards Peralta's Measure E and Measure A bonds.

Elihu Harris spoke up to save the day for the LLAD scheme. He said, "The mayor has called. His chief of staff [David Chai] has called. The city manager [Deborah Edgerly, since enmeshed in scandal and fired] has called, requesting that if we can't vote to support it [the LLAD increase], then they would deeply appreciate it if we not vote at all. The positive thing is that there is no provision in here for collection."

Harris went on to report how strong the pressure from the City was on the Peralta colleges as well as the Oakland Unified School District: "I really think our position ought to be one of non-response [abstain] on the initiative. That is going to be the response of other public entities including the schools. I don't think we want to agitate the City and kill something that could be a $9.8 million deficit on the City, which I think would be not a declaration of war certainly a declaration of something that I'm not sure we're prepared to make unless we have really thought it through."

The board of trustees dutifully agreed to abstain from voting its 225,000 LLAD votes. Combined with the manufactured Yes votes from the Port of Oakland, the rigged balloting turned voters' defeat of the LLAD increase into phony approval of it.

In order to get this outcome, the City gave the Peralta district free votes, assuring the chancellor that the City would not actually try to make the district pay the LLAD tax.

The American colonists staged a revolution over no taxation without representation. The City of Oakland gave the Peralta district, and apparently the Oakland school district, representation without taxation. The City thwarted the will of homeowners and other real voters – who are immediately threatened with a lien on their home if they do not pay the LLAD tax.

As of today, the rigged LLAD increase stands, merely left uncollected for one year. The city council must formally rescind its June 15 resolution declaring that the LLAD tax increase "passed."

Read comments during this controversy by Oakland residents here.