Tax Hikes Needed? Don’t You Believe It

It seems as if the only two solutions elected officials ever come up with are raising taxes or cutting vital services. OK, cue the “Dragnet” theme: Dum, Da, Dum, Dum. Oh, no, they might close down all the police stations and fire stations and hospitals! Quick, vote in a huge tax increase! Hurry before all the police and doctors and teachers leave town!

Nobody wants to see the libraries close or emergency rooms shut down or school funding cut back or our highways go to pot, so we reluctantly bite the bullet and take yet another tax hike. That’s the way it’s worked for decades. Well, I say enough is enough.

We can maintain our essential and crucial services without raising taxes. How? The following are only a few ways to increase or save L.A. city and county revenue.

First, let’s knock off city spending on all those ridiculous and expensive landscaped islands they keep building in the middle of the streets. Take the money allocated for palm trees and artistic boulders and use it to repair potholes. Do we really need a sign carved out of polished granite in the middle of a street proclaiming, “Welcome to Toluca Lake”?

You want beautification? Fix the streets.

Is it against the law to make a turn on a busy street without using a turn signal? If it is, start writing the scofflaws up. The vast majority of drivers do not use their turn signals. If the cops started giving out tickets for that, the city could add millions to its coffers. Replace those meter cops with turn-signal cops and you’ll rake in a lot more.

We can also save money by not changing the white street lights to the amber ones. It’s a waste of money and they don’t give off nearly as much light as the old ones anyway.

Leave the L.A. County seal the way it was. Because three of the five members on the county Board of Supervisors caved in to the demands of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the county’s cost to change the seal on everything it’s on will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We should ban overseas trips by officials. They work on city business; there is no real need to travel to foreign countries on the people’s dime. If they can’t work out city problems from City Hall, well maybe it’s time for us to look for someone who can.

Save money by allowing the police to turn in illegal aliens to the feds. There is a high cost to having them in our healthcare system, in our school systems and in our jails. City services are for citizens and for legal visitors. No matter what you may hear from the other side, this is not a “racist” thing; it is a legal thing.

So there you have it, a few ways to avoid raising taxes or cutting services. I’m certain there are many, many more ways that can be found if our elected representatives are willing to look -- willing to look beyond their own political power base, that is.

Greg Crosby is writer in Sherman Oaks.