County Supervisors Are Asking Public for Blank Check on Jail

Re jail tax election: Isn’t it interesting that the only issues for which special extra taxes are proposed are traffic (November’s Proposition M) and public safety (the current jail tax)--issues that are consistently ranked as most important to taxpayers, while the supervisors continue to find money in the budget for other matters.

If the supervisors were truly representatives of the voters/taxpayers, they would allocate money first out of existing revenues for those issues at the top of the voters’ lists, and then ask the taxpayers for additional money for issues that rank lower on the priority lists.

Instead, the supervisors spend the money already extracted from the taxpayers on their various special interest projects, and then force the voters to increase taxes to pay for basic governmental functions.

DAVID J. ARTHUR, Costa Mesa