Good news! As of Thursday, Gilroy has received 16 inches of rain
for the year. We only need another three inches to be at our
average annual rainfall.
Good news! As of Thursday, Gilroy has received 16 inches of rain for the year. We only need another three inches to be at our average annual rainfall.
The bad news is that federal and state income taxes are due on April 15. Whether one hires a professional to figure out the bite, or does his own, this time of year is apt to be rude and painful.
Meanwhile, the county supervisors, including our own beloved Don Gage, have decided in their infinite wisdom that we the taxpayers of Santa Clara County would be happy to shell out an extra half percent on our local sales tax.
In Santa Clara County, right now, we pay 8.25 percent sales tax. That means that because I just bought a $20 book, I also sent the state and local governments $1.65. Every time I buy anything (other than food), I pay the state and local governments 8.25 percent of my purchase.
(Oh, to live in Ohio, where the sales tax is five percent! On the other hand, it snows in Ohio.)
But for heaven’s sake, an extra half percent? They want to raise the sales tax to 8.75 percent. And they aren’t specifying what the money would be used for. They want to drop it in the general fund and use it as their discretion advises.
No way.
The fact is that government bureaucracies are addicted. Not to meth or alcohol or ecstasy, unlike our local youth. They are addicted to OPM: Other People’s Money. Your money, my money, revenue, tax dollars.
This is the time of year when I am least apt to approve of retirement packages for firefighters that allow them to retire at age 50 with 3 percent of pay per year worked, up to 30 years. The package would cost the city $515,000 annually, and would increase over time.
Let me clue in any government employees out there. I am not retiring when I turn 50. Nor is my husband. We will not be able to afford to, because he works for the private sector and does not have any cushy retirement package. We may be able to retire when we turn 70, if we work hard and save for the next 20 years.
Why do government employees think they should get to retire at 50 at nearly full pay? Because they get paid in OPM. And they are addicted to it.
Whenever I contemplate taxes, my tolerance for governmental snafus goes way down. And it is very easy for me to experience governmental snafus these days. All I have to do is drive north from my house.
At the end of the block, the road is closed while the city works on the $27 million, no, make that $29 million police station. There is a detour sign directing me to turn right.
If I were dumb enough to turn right, I would find myself trying to make a left hand turn onto Church Street, against some of Gilroy’s most relentless traffic.
So I go left, then right on Dowdy, and right again on Sixth. Then I have to stop at the stop sign at Hanna. Two more blocks, and I stop at the stop sign at Church. One more block and I stop at the temporary stop sign at Eigleberry. One more block, and I stop, 50 percent of the time, at the stop light on Monterey.
That is the best route available at present.
The construction on Monterey makes the stop sign on Eigleberry necessary. No problem; I bow to the inevitable. But the stop sign stopping Sixth Street traffic at Hanna is no longer necessary. Hanna is closed and will never open as a through street again. The block between the library and the Taj Mahal is slated to become a parking lot.
That stop sign should be removed, and one should be installed either at Dowdy, or Carmel, or Princevalle, to give the northbound traffic a way to cross Sixth Street safely.
I am not holding my breath. After all, it will be marginally convenient for city employees if the traffic on Sixth comes to a full and complete stop at the future city parking lot.
