Readers React: Prop. 13 bashers: Careful what you wish for

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Jerry Brown, then and now (Steve Brodner / For The Times)

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Then, Brown found joy in simple tasks (Steve Brodner / For The Times)

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Now, Brown conveys those lessons to others (Steve Brodner / For The Times)

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Then, Brown appeared awkward with Linda Ronstadt (Steve Brodner / For The Times)

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Now, with Ann Gust Brown, he’s much more at ease (Steve Brodner / For The Times)

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Then, Brown was “Governor Moonbeam” (Steve Brodner / For The Times)

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Now, he’s into the terrestrial (Steve Brodner / For The Times)

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Then, Brown drove a 1974 Plymouth Satellite (Steve Brodner / For The Times)

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Now, he’s an advocate of high-speed rail (Steve Brodner / For The Times)

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Then it was Prop. 13. Now it’s Prop. 30. (Steve Brodner / For The Times)

Jan. 5, 2015 4:11 PM PT

To the editor: It amazes me when people complain that Proposition 13 has created a “deficit hole” in California, as Steve Brodner did. These people forget that high property taxes would create a mass exodus of California homeowners. (“Jerry Brown: The excellent adventure of California’s governor,” Opinion cartoon, Jan. 2)

Look at parts of the northeast U.S. Our former home in New York, built in 1968, is valued today at $600,000; our home here is valued at $630,000. The property taxes here were $3,000 in 2014, but the taxes on the New York house were about $16,000 in 2013, up more than 13% from 2010.

Homes there are reassessed regardless of whether they are sold.

Property taxes are one reason so many residents of the northeast sell their homes, leave friends and families behind and move south, where they can afford to live as they get older and must survive on fixed incomes.

California has a budget surplus now under Gov. Jerry Brown. However, if California municipalities are in a “deficit hole,” they should tell us where all the tax money they do collect is going.

People who want to overturn Proposition 13 should be careful what they wish for.

Diane Ohanian, San Diego

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