From Sophie in What a difference 10 years can make:
Now the REAL question to ask today to our re-newly sworn Gavin: what do you do with an average of 3 times more property taxes than in 1997? Is the city 3 times better? Are the schools 3 times as good? Are the streets 3 times as clean? (Ok, maybe not 3 if we adjust the wages increase and general cost increase – but still).
I’m not attacking him, I think he does ok – but the question is still open. When people trade up properties and pay 3 times as much taxes on the new home.. shouldn’t they expect MORE from the city than before?
I do. And I’m happy to get some great value back by enroling my kids in a great public school of the district.
Gavin? You reading this?
Except when you can’t make sure your child goes to the school down the street and has to get bused some other school far away.
Dede, that’s an oversimplification of the district’s enrollment process.
Two points: SFUSD is the highest-performing urban school district in California.
And: Guaranteeing access to a particular school also means cutting off access to other schools. Since the majority of families in all-choice SFUSD request a school that’s not their neighborhood school of assignment, you can see that mandating attendance at the neighborhood school of assignment would not be popular. Many other districts that do guarantee/mandate attendance at the neighborhood school are far more troubled and lower-achieving: Richmond (West Contra Costa), for example.
Doesn’t the vast majority of property taxes go back to the state under Prop 13?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978)#Aftermath_in_California
Donno where my post went, but the #1 thing Gavin can do with more tax income is to IMPROVE THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
Imagine how much more demand will come to SF if the schools improved their reps? It’d be ridiculous.
i totally agree about the schools. sf throws $$$$
at civil servant wage, health and retirement packages and we still have crappy bus service, spotty policing, uneven education opportunities and a homelessness problem. protected fiefdoms die hard.
this could be a really great discussion. the problem is simple. it’s costing 3x as much to provide the same mediocre services today that we got from city hall back in 97.
how do we fix that?
it will never get better until we do.