Rossmoor, Open Your Wallet! The Free Lunch Is Over.
March 10, 2013 in 2013 Issues, David Lara, shooting from the hip", Rossmoor By: Dave Emerson
(Rossmoor, 3/10/2012) by David Lara I had a brother-in-law named Howard who was famous for never picking up a dinner tab. He would invite family and friends to a restaurant he selected and then order dinner and play the gracious host.
When they begin to serve dessert, Howard would excuse himself and go to the bathroom leaving his wife at the table. When the bill would come, his wife would state “I would
like to help but I am not allowed to carry a credit card.”
Hosed again
Not wanting to be held hostage in a restaurant, I would pick up the tab so we could be freed. Instantly, Howard would return from the bathroom and state “I will pick up the tab next time.” My wife would look at me and then say “you got hosed again!”
What’s missing from this story?
Recently the Los Alamitos City Council voted to place an armed school resource officer on the Los Alamitos High School Campus. In today’s environment placing an armed police officer on campus is an outstanding move for the safety of our children. The costs for the school resource officer is a $190,000 per year. The City of Los Alamitos was hoping that Seal Beach would pick up 25% of the costs of the armed officer.
Missing from the story was the amount of money that would be paid for by Rossmoor Residents. After all, a large percentage of the students attending the Los Alamitos Unified School District come from Rossmoor.
Two years ago, when burglaries began to increase in Rossmoor the residents demanded additional police coverage from the Orange County Sheriff. Surprisingly, Orange County Sheriff increased patrol, added undercover surveillance and even bicycle patrol.
Recently, the number of auto burglaries has increased and again the Rossmoor citizens are asking the Orange County Sheriff for an increase of patrol deputies. There is never a mention of who will be paying for the increase in police services.
I have lived in Rossmoor for 30 years and have benefited from the outstanding services provided by the County of Orange. When Rossmoor residents are unhappy with county services they have always insisted that the Board of Supervisors improve the services to Rossmoor. When the subject of paying for these services comes up, Rossmoor Residents always say “we pay our taxes.”
One would then assume that Los Alamitos and Seal Beach residents do not pay taxes. The truth of the matter is that Los Alamitos and Seal Beach Residents pay more in taxes due to their utility tax than Rossmoor residents.
With the current restraint on the County Budget, it is obvious that Rossmoor’s free lunches are coming to an end. We cannot hide in the bathroom when the bill comes due. Check please!
Supervisor Moorlach was asked if he would help, and the soon to be ex-Supervisor who is looking to be CA next Governator clearly indicated that Rossmoor will be covered in a foot of snow before that actually happens.
So, how do we (all three communities) clearly pay for a service that would benefit all the communities (all of our kids attend these schools)?
The fairest way is to “tax ourselves” with a district fee collected as part of the property tax. There are 22623 housing units in the thee communities. Let’s reduce that by 50% (taking out leisure world, merging apartment units) than add 20% (commercial property). That leaves 13574.
Now, we want security, and let’s add art and music programs back in (let’s put the kitchen sink in there). So, let’s agree that $100 per unit would be a fair price to pay as a community to invest in the schools that keep our home values high. That would be $1,357,400 (about) that the district could use in very limited ways (security, music/arts, library services).
Now who wouldn’t pay $100/yr to the LAUSD to ensure these programs were paid and supported? Being in the LAUSD adds 10-15% to the value of your home verses LB, Cypress, etc. That’s a heck of a lot more than the $100/yr. In fact, at $250/yr it would be a major savings (and remember, as we do this it increases the values of our property even more!). It is one of the lowest cost investments to ensure the greatest valuation of our largest assets (well, two. our homes and our kids).
Brain dead simple solution that keeps the whole thing out of the hands of everyone except the LAUSD who would have their hands tied on how that money could be spent.
Just my $0.02 on the fairest way to ensure that we invest in something that has a low cost of investment across the communities, but a great return on that investment.
This solution is “brain dead”! One guard at the high school is not going to do a bit of good. And the school in Connecticut that was attacked was an elementary school. Are you proposing that the high school kids are more important than the elementary kids?
Also earmarking the money for anything other than the security is another way of giving the district money. Since you bring up leaving out Leisure World, it should be mentioned that anyone over the age of 65 living in Rossmoor, Los Alamitos or Seal Beach should be excluded from this tax. The last election for the school bond was pushed through hiding the fact that the seniors living outside of Leisure World would pay too. In previous elections all seniors were excluded from these taxes.
Also, any apartments that are in these areas should be included in the tax. There are many renters who have children in the district, so the owners should make the rents appropriate to pay the tax too! Then there are the many inter district students who get the benefits from our taxes without paying their part.
There needs to be a general election to decide if we should add money into the district’s coffers! With the federal budget being halted, and the economy tanking, we need to think twice about taking money out of our neighbor’s pockets!
Karen, there is s direct connection between the quality of the school district and the value of our homes (just like the direct connection between the quality of police protection and the value of our homes). A person looking to move into the area looks at a number of issues when buying a home, and one of the greatest reasons that there is a 15-20% price differential between buying in Los Al verses buying in Cypress is due in no small part to the quality of the LAUSD.
20+ years ago when I was looking to buy my first home I looked in Westminster, Garden Grove, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Stanton, Cypress, and the Los Al area. I was working within a 10 mile radius of my wife’s family. Since we were planning to have children the schools made an important part of my purchase decision. There were two homes we looked at in the Myra/Marion area of Cypress. They were across the street from one another. Same models, same year, no changes to either. Both were in the same condition. The only difference was the line down the middle of the street. That line was the LAUSD line. The house on the LAUSD side was 20% more.
The benefit to homeowners living in the LAUSD area is that their homes have a higher value. Investing in the school district has a direct proportional increase to that home value.
Now, that value does NOT pass on to someone in Leisure World. No one buys in Leisure World because they want their kids in the LAUSD. Leisure World doesn’t “get off” because of their age, they get off because there is no increase in the value of their property from the investment into the LAUSD.
You want to talk about “renters?” Let’s talk about landlords. If I have a three bedroom apartment in Los Al that I rent, I get MORE for my rent because it’s in Los Al than I would get for the same apartment if it were located on Valley View. Why? Because my renter wants their kids in the best school district. Like the home owner they are willing to pay more to do so.
Since I can get more for my units that I rent, guess what that means? That means the value of my apartment complex is worth MORE. More because it derives more income from higher rents I can charge because the LAUSD increases the value.
The one place where you make an excellent point is the inter-district transfers. If the community were to vote to put this tax on ourselves, then part of the requirement would be that any inter-district transfer would also have to pay the same amount to the school district. For property owners this is an investment in our homes, but for the inter-district transfer it’s an investment directly into the child’s education. Now it should be noted that I can’t think of any time in the 15 years that I have had children attending LAUSD schooling that I wasn’t expected to find additional $’s to provide. From science club activities to choir to sports. In fact, four years at LAHS with an involved student has cost me well in excess of $15K. I don’t expect that this proposed increase in taxes will change that all that much. That is an investment not in my “property”, but in my individual children’s education. My neighbor who has a child not as involved in these things doesn’t have to pay for this (and another who has children involved in the sports programs most likely has paid more).
So, when you look at the raw numbers you can see how this very low cost investment on the part of everyone is one of those wonderful “lifts all boats” type of things. All the property owners receive direct benefits from the investment. In addition, all the kids will also receive a direct benefit from the investment.
If you were told that a direct investment of $250/yr would maintain the increased value of your home, why wouldn’t you want to do that. Maintaining the increased value of your largest personal investment at such a low individual cost is a “no brainer” and “brain dead simple.” The clear relationship between our property values and the quality of the LAUSD is undeniable. Just ask any Realtor.
A common low cost investment by all would only increase the value to everyone, whether or not they had children in the schools. It just happens to be an added benefit that those who have kids in the schools receive the benefits of the enhancements to the LAUSD, but that is no reason for anyone who owns property to not want to maintain and increase the value of their property.
Wouldn’t the fact that the community feels the need to have armed security at a school send the message that the school is not perceived to be safe for children, thereby negatively impacting the schools reputation? Wouldn’t that decrease home values? Is the high school no safer than the high school in Compton? There is absolutely no reason to have armed security at the school. What a waste.
UCT:
Dave E. here. After the Sandy Hook tragedy I think people recognize the need for school security does not reflect on our specific community but our society.
From all accounts the village of Sandy Hook is a great place to live. In fact, it has a lot in common with the three communities the Los Al USD serves.
We used to have an officer on campus at our High School and “armed security” was only part of the job description. As I understood it, educational and relational tasks were actually more important.
Sadly, the officer was cut a few years ago due to budget cuts.
Speaking of Sandy Hook, the original proposal from LAUSD this time around called for two officers to cover all of the District’s schools. In reality “armed security” is probably needed at least as much at the District’s elementary schools as at the High School.
According to the City’s Staff Report on the proposal to hire only one officer, the second officer was dropped due to jurisdictional problems relating to the fact that most of the LAUSD’s elementary schools are located in Rossmoor.
Both the budget problem and the jurisdictional issues could be resolved with something like the proposal JM Ivler makes in his first comment above and defends in his second.
JM and I are on different sides of the political spectrum on many issues, but his proposal makes a lot of sense to me.
Sorry Dave, you won’t sell me on a house here if you tell me that the high school has armed guards. I would be inclined to look elsewhere. While realizing that there are differences of opinion on the subject, armed guards did not prevent the attacks at Columbine or at Virginia Tech. Unless you expect the number of attacks to increase remarkably natiowide, or show specific instances of conduct at Los Al that would require armed guards (in which case you might have a homeowner looking to sell his place), I just don’t see the merit of hiring armed guards.
NO, UCT. Perhaps you are clueless.
LAHS has 3,000 students/ teachers/staff there everyday. When there is ANY kind of problem that requires the police they come from the Los al police department. It could be a drug/parking/traffic accident problem, but it takes a police officer out of the field. It doesn’t take a SB or Rossmoor policeman away from their duties in the field, it take a Los Al policeman because it’s in their city.
There are more students from SB and Rossmoor than Los Al. Not to mention Cypress, Norwalk etc. How about this? Why don’t the parents of the students pay a special “fee” during the time their kids are attending the school to pay for the policeman? All the schools could have the protection.
When your kids have grauated and moved on then you are done paying the fee. It would be like a toll road, you pay to use it. Everyone’s tax dollars are already paying for our school. My city, Los al is going to be paying 50% of this shared cost. Rossmoor should figure out a way to help with this cost.