|
Join Outright Libertarians in SF LGBT Pride Parade Sunday June 28 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Written by Rob Power
|
|
Wednesday, 24 June 2009 23:30 |
 San Francisco Libertarians will be walking in the Outright Libertarians contingent in the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Pride Parade on Sunday, June 28. If you'd like to walk with us, we are contingent #70 and will be lining up on Beale Street between Market and Mission Streets at 10:30am. Also, please stop by our festival booth on either Saturday or Sunday. We're booth A31, which is in front of the Bill Graham Auditorium on Grove Street between Polk and Larkin Streets. |
|
Last Updated on Thursday, 25 June 2009 09:59 |
|
|
Supervisors Enact More Renter Protection Laws |
|
|
|
|
Written by Ron Getty
|
|
Wednesday, 24 June 2009 02:58 |
|
Tuesday June 23, 2009 the San Francisco Board of Supervsiors enacted new renter protection laws. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors struck again in its on-going campaign to forcibly evict residential rental property owners from San Francisco and to further restrict the availability of vacant residential rental units. The Board of Supervisors blithely and totally ignores the unintended consequences of its actions on behalf of residential renters. The Board of Supervisors passed out legislation which would do the following: Property owners could not move into their property if it means evicting a family. Tenants will have the right to add non-family roommates. Rent could not be increased where it would exceed one-third of a tenant’s income. CPI increases in rent could not be banked and done all at once. Blocked rent increases with additional tenants in the same apartment.
This collective assault on residential rental property owners means they will be closely scrutinizing the income and creditability of applicants. Marginal applicants won’t have a chance to have their application accepted. Property owners faced with these restrictions will take residential rental properties off the market rather than buy financial peril to their ability to make mortgage and property tax payments. Or worse, the residential property owner will take the property off the market by declaring the property an Ellis property and go TIC. What truly needs to be done is to throw off the choking yoke of residential rent control completely and all the other entangling residential rental property regulations. Have the planning commission reassess its restrictions on new high density residential rental properties along mass transit corridors. The Board of Supervisors instead of bleating the mantra of affordable housing needs to free up restrictive zoning for residential rental properties. Close down the City owned golf courses and turn the land over to residential rental property developers for mixed use light commercial development. Do the same for the properties where schools have been closed down. Shut down the Redevelopment Agency and its anti-rental clique. Quite simply get San Francisco government out of the residential rental property business and allow the open free market to develop residential rental units as needed, where needed with competitive free market rental rates. Read More Here |
|
Last Updated on Thursday, 25 June 2009 09:58 |
|
How to Protect San Franciscans In Hard Times |
|
|
|
|
Written by Ron Getty
|
|
Wednesday, 04 March 2009 05:03 |
|
How to Protect San Franciscans in Hard Times
Ron Getty
Vice Chair
Chair Initiatives Committee
Phil Ting, San Francisco’s Assessor-Recorder, stated in a press release dated March 3, 2009, “It’s part of my job to protect San Francisco’s residents in difficult economic times.”
Ting was referring to the number of foreclosures facing San Francisco. These foreclosures were wrapped up by Ting in the noble casus belli of how the affected families are financially devastated. Then there is the impact on local neighborhoods of property values dropping further eroding assessed property values. Ultimately, the boarded up properties contribute to run down slum neighborhoods. Then these become breeding grounds for vicious criminals and havens for gang war-lords. Worse of all gaping holes in the city budget would result from the loss of property taxes.
Phil Ting should read the duties and responsibilities of the Assessor-Recorder posted on the official San Francisco City web site:
The Assessor-Recorder has the following basic responsibilities:
- Locate all taxable property in the County and identify the ownership.
- Establish a taxable value for all property subject to property taxation.
- List the value of all property on the assessment roll.
- Apply all legal exemptions.
- Maintain public records.
- Collect City revenues from the recording of legal documents.
- Conduct fair and efficient assessments.
- Improve Customer Services and Technology.
- Ensure equality in all assessments.
Phil Ting is commendable for extending himself to protect homeowners facing foreclosure and the loss to the City of the property taxes. However, it would be better if he tended to his knitting instead of trying to declare San Francisco a “No-Foreclosure Zone”.
Ting and all the others caterwaulering about predatory lending, outright fraud and years of financial negligence on the part of lending institutions miss the boat as the stage was set years ago for today’s foreclosure panic.
|
|
Last Updated on Wednesday, 04 March 2009 08:40 |
|
Read more...
|
|
Silver lining to a lead economy |
|
|
|
|
Written by Rob Power
|
|
Tuesday, 24 February 2009 18:59 |
|
When the Libertarian Party called for drug legalization in its first platform in 1971, even the Democrats demonized us for the position.
Today, California Assembly member Tom Ammiano presented a bill to decriminalize marijuana statewide. Similar proposals have been made in the past, but this time it's different. Why?
Money.
According to Ammiano, the licensing and taxing of marijuana sales, which currently represent $14 billion of the California economy, would save several programs from the budget chopping block by raising $1.3 billion.
Not a very Libertarian reason, but, hey. We'll take what we can get. More freedom is more freedom. |
|
Democrats in Sacramento "Soak the Poor" |
|
|
|
|
Written by Rob Power
|
|
Friday, 20 February 2009 17:55 |
 |
Strangely, it seems that the Democrats have decided to balance the state budget on the backs of lower-income families, while leaving those of us who they routinely deride as "the rich" unaffected for the most part. If you're the typical San Franciscan (median household income in the $70k range, one car or no cars, and one kid or no kids), the new budget tax calculator at the Sacramento Bee website shows that your "share" of the tax increase will be far less than 1% of your annual take-home pay. But the same can't be said for those in other parts of the state, who tend to have half the income, more cars, and more kids. From Richard Rider of the San Diego Tax Fighters:
Try this example of a struggling young working family: $35,000 total salary, $15,000 worth of cars, use 30 gallons of gas a week and have two kids at home. This is a family living paycheck-to-paycheck, getting by as best they can.
Total tax increase? A crushing $831 a year. That's well over a week's gross wages.
Bottom line: The top priority of the Democrat[ic] Party is the public employee unions - NOT the poor, the working class, or young families.
Since the above example was published, the gas tax increase was removed from the budget proposal, but the vehicle licensing fee increase remained. The example family would still pay an extra $660 per year, over $100 more than a hypothetical San Francisco couple making four times as much but with no cars and no kids. In "progressive" terms, this is even worse when you consider that the tax increase will be nearly 2% of the example family's annual income, but only 4/10 of one percent of the annual income of the hypothetical San Francisco couple.
|
|
|
Last Updated on Friday, 20 February 2009 20:55 |
|
The Irrationality of the Planning Commission |
|
|
|
|
Written by Rob Power
|
|
Thursday, 12 February 2009 18:15 |
 |
C.W. Nevius comments on the banning of American Apparel by residents of the Mission:
"Congratulations to the residents of Valencia Street. After a rowdy and sometimes misleading campaign, they managed to stop American Apparel - a socially conscious, popular, American-run clothing store - from moving into one of the street's vacant storefronts...
By a 7-0 vote - including staunch Republican Michael Antonini - the Planning Commission refused to grant the company a conditional use permit.
This only reinforces San Francisco's reputation as America's squeaky-wheel city. If you can get 200 people together and persuade them to show up at a meeting and raise a fuss, you can stop damn near anything in this town. At some point, someone is going to have to stand up and say we've had enough of government dominated by small groups of shouting people."
So, that would be the bottom right panel of our poster. We've stood up and said it. Now all we need is for the voters to elect us. Do we have your support, Mr. Nevius? Do we have the support of the Merchants of Upper Market and Castro? Do you all now realize that Dufty is not a friend of the business community? Will you support the Libertarian who runs against him next time?
As you said in your commentary, "I am not holding my breath."
|
|
|
Last Updated on Sunday, 22 February 2009 00:11 |
|
City Hall's attack on the Bill of Rights cost taxpayers $800,000 |
|
|
|
|
Written by Rob Power
|
|
Tuesday, 10 February 2009 23:41 |
 |
The total cost of Propsition H, the attempt by the Board of Supervisors to infringe the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, was nearly $800,000 of taxpayer money.
According to the NRA press release:
The City of San Francisco has paid $380,000 to the National Rifle Association (NRA) as reimbursement for legal fees incurred while striking down Proposition H, passed by San Francisco voters in November 2005... Combined with more than $200,000 in fees paid to City lawyers defending the ordinance and an equal value of lawyers time donated to the City for the unsuccessful defense of this case, the total costs to City taxpayers in defending against Proposition H, a civilian disarmament attempt, approaches $800,000.
Your taxpayer dollars at work, indeed!
|
|
|
Last Updated on Thursday, 12 February 2009 23:07 |
|
SF Weekly: "Plastic bag ban didn't work." Libertarians: "Told you so!" |
|
|
|
|
Written by Rob Power
|
|
Monday, 19 January 2009 04:02 |
 |
SF Weekly recently ran a feature story on how San Francisco's new ban on plastic grocery bags has been a failure on basically every measurable goal.
"Paper bags have a greater environmental impact than plastic bags, and therefore you would not create a policy that banned plastic and forced everyone to use paper only," said Dick Lilly, the manager of the waste prevention program for Seattle Public Utilities. After much analysis, that city spurned the San Francisco model in favor of a fee on all bags, meant to spur shoppers to bring their own — a goal San Francisco officials embrace, but do virtually nothing to promote. Key elements of the S.F. model, in Lilly's estimation, "could be a catastrophic mistake."
As a reminder, LPSF has been selling via our Cafe Press store a canvas bag that sums up our thoughts on the matter. |
|
|
Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 February 2009 19:20 |
|
|
Copyright © 2009 Libertarian Party of San Francisco. All Rights Reserved.
|
