2/3 Majority Vote

Evidently, there is a movement in Sacramento to reduce the required two-thirds majority necessary to pass school bonds to a simple majority. The president and chairman of the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. were diligent enough to point this out to readers (“Protections Needed When Only a Select Group Pays,” June 7).

Their hearts seem to be in the right place but in pleading their case, Fred Buenger and Mike Saliba are guilty of perpetuating two myths: that in 1993 voters overwhelmingly shot down a similar initiative only because they thought property owners deserved continued protection and that only property owners pay property taxes and special assessments.

If they continue to make such blind assumptions, the people they claim to represent are going to get the idea that they are not the sharpest two knives in the drawer.

Buenger and Saliba can, if they wish, continue to believe the outcome of the 1993 vote was evidence that voters wanted to protect property owners. The outcome is more accurately linked to taxpayers’ distrust of bureaucrats in general. If there was anything that would make it harder to raise taxes, the majority was for it. This has to be true because, by Buenger and Saliba’s own argument, the people who own property are a minority in California and without votes from those who do not, the owners stood to lose their two-thirds protection.

Self-interest, not goodwill toward property owners, defeated that initiative. Renters knew all too well that any increase in taxes their landlords saw was simply going to get passed down to them anyway.

Renters realize that it’s not out of benevolence that their landlords provide them with shelter; it’s for money. Unless they are complete idiots, rental property owners do not rent at a loss. They make sure that the collectible rents are sufficient to cover their mortgages, all the costs associated with management, maintenance and repairs, their insurance, all the taxes and assessments and still provide them with a tidy profit.

If the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. truly is interested in protecting all taxpayers, it needs to expand its goals.

Excessive government debt saddles everyone with continually higher costs and lower standards of living. Instead of only worrying about the property owning minority’s interests, the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. should put more time and effort into explaining this and generating support to apply the same two-thirds super majority standard to the state’s sales of general-obilgation bonds.

BRUCE ROLAND, Ojai