Commentary: Prop. 13 anniversary reminds that taxpayers need safeguards in Newport Beach

This month we celebrated the 42nd anniversary of the largest taxpayer revolt in modern California history. Proposition 13 overwhelmingly passed on June 6, 1978, with nearly 65% of voter support.

Prior to Proposition 13, local governments set property tax rates resulting in gouging taxpayers in a patchwork of confusion. The taxpayer backlash was caused by local government gone wild.

Property taxes were reduced from an average of a little less than 3% to no more than 1%, allowing millions of Californians to save their homes.

Proposition 13 also required two-thirds voter approval for “general obligation” bonds – a tax by another name.

Within days of its passage Sacramento’s spending lobby went to work to create loopholes in the voter mandate.

Fast forward to 2010. Led by former Newport Beach councilmen Keith Curry, Rush Hill, Mike Henn and Steve Rosansky, a plan was concocted to borrow $126 million to build the new Civic Center, “the Taj Mahal,” without voter approval.

In the rush to build their monument to political ego they prevented you from voting on the massive debt to finance the Taj Mahal.

They used certificates of participation, an esoteric financing tool developed by the political elite, as an end-run around Proposition 13.

Newport’s taxpayers are paying $8 million a year in debt service for the Taj Mahal. By any name, that’s a tax. The $128 million debt costs us $228 million when paid off in 2041.

Remember, they even financed the $1,100 desk chairs, $10,600 conference tables, a $2 million “Bridge to Nowhere” and those $221,000 bunnies.

Whether you like the Taj Mahal or not, I believe voters should have a right to decide if they want to pay for it or future massive projects.

It’s a proposal that has been stuck in the city’s finance committee for two years.

Unfortunately, the finance committee is becoming a place where taxpayer-friendly ideas go to die.

I am considering a citizen-sponsored initiative requiring voter approval for debt on large city projects in excess of $25 million.

Newport’s voters are allowed to weigh in on development projects. Why not taxpayer debt?

Newport Beach resident BOB MCCAFFREY is the volunteer chairman of Newport Residents for Reform.