Commentary: Tax should remain temporary

Fans of the comedians Monty Python may recall the final, grotesque scene of “The Meaning of Life,” in which a morbidly obese man gorges himself on a multicourse meal at a fancy restaurant, encouraged by an obsequious waiter played by John Cleese, only to explode after eating a tiny mint after his meal. What happens next isn’t pretty.
Like Cleese’s waiter, Councilwoman Stephany Aguilar wants us to continue to pay for one more tiny, quarter-cent tax for another five years.
It’s a very small tax with a large attitude. Temporary mean five years, then 10 years, but in reality, there are no real limits. That is why polls and elections this year tell the story of a furious electorate. Politicians will always find new ways to spend our money. Voters must establish firm limits or lose their personal freedoms and property. We are taxed enough already.
Measure C won the overwhelming support of voters because we believed our elected officials when they explained the need to establish a reserve fund — the need was targeted and temporary. And, indeed, we can be proud that the money was used as promised, and that Mayor Jim Reed, Vice Mayor Dene Bustichi and council members Randy Johnson and Donna Lind chose to tighten the city’s belt in order to honor their commitment to keep the tax temporary.
Aguilar doesn’t think it’s fair for the city’s work force to suffer reductions, furloughs, compressed work loads and other consequences of shrinking revenues and a shrinking economy. While I sympathize, we have all been afflicted, and in the dreaded private sector, workers don’t get to raise taxes to cover their losses.
I would ask: Is it fair for Scotts Valley’s taxpayers — many more of whom have lost jobs and homes, or taken on additional work to make ends meet — to insure the city’s work force against such sacrifices? I’ll wager most of those folks driving over the hill every morning haven’t seen a raise in two to three years.
If the city might have to cut service levels, then Aguilar should say what services must be reduced, and what the service level will be, so we have a choice. She needs to specify exactly where the money will be spent and why it must be spent and demonstrate that the city has tried all other options — pay freezes, benefit cuts, job and agency consolidations, contract renegotiations and so on — before proposing to take another dime from people who are struggling with money in the privacy of their own lives.
Better yet, have the decency to keep your end of the deal with Measure C, focus on being tough managers in tough times and accept the notion that government must live within its means.
If you agree, please visit my website, nosvtax.com, to sign a petition I intend to present to the City Council and leave your comments.
David deMilo is a resident of Scotts Valley.