Advertisement
Politi-Cal

Schwarzenegger spokesman compares Capitol Democrats to Bell City Council

By Patrick McGreevy
Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not said whether he will sign a bill that would give tax refunds to Bell residents who were overcharged by their city, but an aide said there are parallels between what happened in that Southern California city and the action of Democrats in the current state budget dispute.

The state controller determined that Bell city officials illegally raised the property taxes in 2007 to impose a ‘retirement tax’ to cover rising pension costs for its employees. Democratic Assemblymen Kevin De Leon of Los Angeles and Hector De La Torre of South Gate introduced AB 900 on Wednesday to allow tax refunds to go back to the owners of 4,000 Bell properties.

Advertisement

“What happened in Bell is not unlike what Democrats in the Capitol are trying to do: increase taxes to pay for public employee pensions,’ said Matt Connelly, a spokesman for the governor.

-- Patrick McGreevy in Sacramento

Politi-Cal
Patrick McGreevy

Patrick McGreevy covered the California Legislature out of the Sacramento bureau until 2021. He joined the Los Angeles Times in 1998 and worked in the City Hall and San Fernando Valley bureaus, writing about subjects including Valley secession, LAPD reform and city government during the administrations of Mayors Richard Riordan, James Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa. He is a native of San Diego and a graduate of San Jose State University.

Advertisement