The TOT (Transient Occupancy Tax) was made the main focus of the election by a political action committee called the Citizens for a Better Calaveras (CBC).
They filmed it and promoted their candidates
to the fullest degree possible, with the intent of getting them on tape promising to fund each of their 501c3 organizations with tax money. And now they will be investigated for it.
Because we at the Sentinel have found out that there was low and scummy politics on both sides (we recently discovered a dishonorable b&b owner that you will be shocked when you find out the name of) aand we feel the political action committee was less than honorable in their endeavor, we had to do some checking.
At this point, we feel that raising the TOT to 10% is a good thing; but giving any of this money to irresponsible, and totally unaccountable organizations is a very bad idea.
Gary Tofanelli, who was the one Supervisor with enough guts to tell the truth said it correctly; why not give the money directly to animal control. Why give it to an organization that has proven over and over again that it is not capable of handling situations of importance.
The three candidates who signed onto this contract with these non-profits are now stuck with their decisions and they are bad decisions.
If they want to go around and get signatures from voters the way any other proposition would get on the ballot, let them try. But to circumvent that process by forcing newly elected officials into handing our tax money to them will, in our opinion, be their undoing.
If you want more money to go to certain county departments, fine. But why filter the tax money through these incompetent 501c3's that are simply to lazy or unpopular to get donations.
Raise the TOT, fine, but give it to these people to waste away, NO!
6 comments:
Amazing! Sierra Sentinel, TOT is Transient Occupancy Tax. Most counties use those tax monies to promote tourism, not subsidize 501 c3 organizations. Tourism brings in sales tax. Bring in more tourism, the receipt of sales tax goes up. In the past, I have seen $1.00 spent on tourism by a county return $11.00.
Since you have reversed your position from no to YES, SUPPORTING TOT; do you owe apologies to certain people you criticized previously? Maybe you should think first before printing. SS are you a tax & spend liberal organization?
Thanks for printing this response.
Interesting. i took it that the Sentinel was against raising the tot because of this political action committee using it to get money and promote certain candidates.
what are you talking about, previous writer, or do you own a lodging facility and just like to complain?
They did research and changed their mind. TOTs are necessary evil. They are intended to mitigate the costs of tourism on our infrastructure and promote the tourism. It would be an irresponsible move to take those monies and donate them to anything that does not meet the criteria for use. No matter how much you love animals or reading.....the library and SPCA are not appropriate uses of a TOT tax. Thanks for rethinking your position.
The problem is that this particular TOT increase is tied directly into specific non-profits and won't be able to be reallocated anywhere else once it passes. In fact this TOT increase removes the previous allocation to ROADS. If you support an increased TOT that meets the criteria you talk about you still need to oppose this particular increase because it doesn't.
Why should they receive TOT taxes? Give them a straw to the general fund. Let them hold fundraiser. Let them apply for grants from public organizations, not govt. Let them hold bake sales. Let them find a 1% person willing to leave them all their wealth after taxes.
A commenter mentioned that the CBC proposal to raise the TOT gives nothing to Roads. So I went to the CBC web site (bettercalaveras.org) and sure-nuf, there is no nention of Roads and all the other distributions amount to the total of 10%!!!
Does Tom Garcia know about this! Is the CBC just really bad at math? Does Roads want to give up their 2% share. It seems that the CBC can put anyting up for ballot they want to. This is a really bad, bad, bad, idea.
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