Letter to the Editor: Yes on Measures W and X, and Why?

By Rae Largura | Published on 05.22.2012 8:48 p.m.

I hope you will join me in voting for and endorsing school funding Measures W and X on the June 5 ballot.

Four years ago, voters in the Santa Barbara Unified School District overwhelmingly approved $7 million in local funding for classrooms. Those funds have been used for music and art instruction, math, science, foreign language and the performing arts throughout the district. Those parcel tax measures expire in June 2013.

As a way to continue providing valuable enrichment programs and an enhanced curriculum, the Board of Education voted to place two measures on the June 5 ballot: Measure W for junior high and high schools that serve 10,000 students in Santa Barbara, Montecito and Goleta, and Measure X for Santa Barbara elementary schools serving 5,000 students. These two measures combined will deliver more than $16 million to our students and our classrooms.

The funds generated from these measures will stay in our community and cannot be taken away by the state. The term of the measures is four years. There is an exemption for seniors, and no monies can be used for administrator salaries.

I am supporting these measures, and I hope you will, too. Please help us spread the word with an email campaign and click here to like us on Facebook.

All we need is your yes vote on the June 5 ballot.

Rae Largura
Santa Barbara

Comments

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» Sy Prey on 05.23.12 @ 08:21 AM

I am voting no on Measure W and X. Parcel taxes should never become permanent parts of school budgets or property owner tax obligations.

Demanding renewal of parcel taxes shows poor planning and budget management while state school funding gets diverted into employee union perks and benefits. Parcel taxes were never intended to be permanent burdens on local property tax owners.

The school district has misused these prior parcel taxes and their demands for renewal must be stopped now.

» AN50 on 05.23.12 @ 04:16 PM

Rae,

The state has plenty of money for these important educational tools. The problem is, as Sy points out, they have a terrible sense of priority. W and X just enable the tax addicted state to continue to abuse your children by funneling money to non educational areas, like pension funds or administrative costs.

Sy is correct and here is why. This area is rapidly becoming a retirement village as businesses flee and the population left ages. The younger population will become largely landless tenants. The landowners will continue to vote down property tax initiatives and this source of funding for your children will dry up.

The alternative is that a large landless population will continue to burden property owners thus driving rents and business costs through the roof. Both scenarios bode ill for you and your children.

The solution is simple, demand your union puppet representatives represent you and your children’s needs rather than simply do the unions bidding. It’s a tough choice, particularly for those who have been brought up to trust unions or indoctrinated to believe they were on the side of common people.

Unions are every bit as greedy and lusting for power as the big corporations you have been taught to hate. If and when you wake up to that reality you then can make the right choice.

» lou segal on 05.23.12 @ 04:31 PM

Please see my Noozhawk article and the many comments posted regarding the article. Sy Prey discusses in great detail why this letter to the editor is a propaganda piece. I would bet the author has a superficial understanding of the issues and is being used by the educational establishment to get the taxpayers to continue financing a failing school system, which is stuck in the last century. Without badly needed reforms, no amount of money is going to improve our public schools. Please don’t get fooled by these dubious and deceptive assertions in this letter. Vote no.

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Letter to the Editor: Yes on Measures W and X, and Why?

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