Why vote No on Measure A?

Many voters have received their Vote By Mail ballots, but have not received the Sample Ballot booklet which contains the for and against arguments for city and county measures.  The City Clerk first blamed the County, now they blame the Postal Service.  Please do not vote until you get your booklet and can read all the arguments. Until then, here are a few reasons to vote No:

A NO VOTE GUARANTEES THAT THE CURRENT 10.25% TAX WILL BE REDUCED TO 9.75% IN 2023 AND BACK TO 9.25% IN 2027.

A YES VOTE EXTENDS THE 10.25% SALES TAX FOREVER.

Long Beach residents want more public safety, better fire protection, longer library hours, well maintained parks and streets with no potholes. This is what Mayor Garcia promised 4 years ago. Since then we’ve paid $160 million but we have nothing to show for it. Our tax dollars have not been used as promised. Police have not been hired, but are on stressful overtime; we have lost another fire station; we have dangerous “road diets”, poorly designed roundabouts, empty bike lanes and hundreds of potholes and broken sidewalks; we lost library hours and most libraries are open only 5 days a week; every park has maintenance problems, but we get a $1.4 million artificial turf fields. Where have our tax dollars gone? Big raises, overtime pay that has doubled the income of many top level managers, a $1 million big screen TV for city hall, and other expenditures that are hard to quantify because there have been no audits.

A NO VOTE WILL ALLOW THE EXTRA SALES TAX TO END IN 7 YEARS.  IF THEY CAN SPEND IT WISELY, FOR OUR QUALITY OF LIFE,  MAYBE WE WILL TRUST THEM WITH MORE MONEY IN 2027.  MEANWHILE, VOTE NO ON THE INFINITY TAX.