By BOB MAIER – OPINION
Proposition 14 on the April 4 Anchorage Municipal Ballot proposes to amend the Municipal Charter by removing the taxation on marijuana from the tax cap calculation.
In Anchorage the terms for the sale and marketing for marijuana were approved by voters with the express promise in the ballot language that the new revenue provided by the taxation would fall under the Anchorage tax cap.
Now here we are just a few years later with a proposition before us to be voted upon which will back-track on the ballot language that was approved by voters.
In 2023 the taxation on marijuana received by the Municipality will roughly be $6,000,000, which will reduce the burden on property taxpayer’s dollar for dollar. If passed, Prop 14 will result in an increase of $68 in the annual property tax bill for every home worth $400,000. That’s because Prop 14 would remove $6,000,000 from the tax cap according to numbers provided by the municipality.
This information is not included in the ballot language as the Anchorage Assembly deleted it in the S-2 version of the enabling Ordinance 2022-17 as passed on January 24, 2023.
Make no mistake about it, despite the way it is being sold, Prop 14 is a significant property tax increase.
What exactly does Prop 14 propose? The ballot language dedicates the revenue from the marijuana tax to be utilized for “Child Care and Early Education,” along with creating an “Accountability Board of Child Care and Early Education.”
Do we really need to create more bureaucracy in our education system?
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
If Prop 14 passes, this new “Accountability Board” will surely see the need for increased revenue as their number one priority for this brand-new Anchorage Municipal Program.
In 2009, voters approved the “Repair Our Tax Cap Initiative” with a 62% margin, reversing the attempt by then Mayor Mark Begich to alter the tax cap calculation. In 2016, voters approved another “Repair Our Tax Cap Initiative” by a similar 62% vote to reverse yet another attempt by Berkowitz to alter the tax cap calculation.
Utilizing “Child Care and Early Education” as a Trojan Horse to unlock the voter approved provisions of our tax cap will haunt Anchorage property taxpayers. If Prop 14 is approved, you will certainly see future proposals to dilute our tax cap even further utilizing this same formula.
Let us respect the initial promise made by the Municipality of Anchorage, the one approved by voters and keep the marijuana tax inside the tax cap calculation.
Vote NO on Proposition 14.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
15 Comments
Child care and early education are the responsibility of parents, not municipal government. Why are we paying to take care of other people’s children? If you can’t afford to pay for your kids to have daycare, then maybe you should have been married when you had kids and maybe you need to ask grandma or someone else to step in, or maybe you need another source of income. Paying people in order for them to make bad choices always results in…. bad choices.
Maybe abstaining from sex you wouldn’t need a sitter.
Close down the fire departments. These people have the nerve to ask others to put theirs fires out. It is not our problem if you decide to purchase a home but not a fire truck.
Tamra, are you against abortion? If a woman who has been abused is impregnated by a family member, for example, are you going to judge her for “not getting married”? Her child will be a member of our community; would you treat it as an outcast then, or would you embrace that child and help insure it has its basic needs met, as it will be a future adult and could go down the path of crime if treated such, or could become a great person if given a chance. There are no guarantees that help will prevent such demise but it will certainly increase the odds for that child and I feel would be the Christian thing to do. We are instructed to love thy neighbor, help the sick and poor, and not judge. God will be the judge. We do not know and cannot assume the circumstances in which every child is born.
Thanks for the heads up. Now I’ll have to read te wording artfully to be sure of what they are saying.
“This information is not included in the ballot language as the Anchorage Assembly deleted it in the S-2 version of the enabling Ordinance 2022-17 as passed on January 24, 2023.” Why am I not surprised?
Thank you laying this out so clearly!
Not directly related to this topic, but the other post is so buried now. Talking about Rep. McCabe’s article talking about Carbon Credit: McCabe, I’d trust David Dubyne w/Adapt 2030 before I’d trust you and he is saying that the Carbon Credit stuff IS tied in with ESG and it is not going to work out for the little guys. Quit lying to Alaskans McCabe. Maybe you should move back on the grid and suffer like the rest of us if the b.s. you are pushing goes through.
https://www.brighteon.com/dcf20c99-24d0-4469-aebe-373a389d76e9
Thank you Foh
Subjects like ESG, psychotropic drugs/ Mary Fulp, election integrity/ forensic audits that should have happened, identities stolen via div elections, and on and on! Government is doing a huge amount of damage and gets away with it because we don’t have any ability to hold it accountable! Dunleavy knows this and plays people like there stupid fools. This might be true but equally true is that our capabilities are no match for tactics this government use’s all the time. Delay, distraction, investigations of itself, on and on! We pay for all of it, twice! A new way of fighting back is desperately needed!
I have lived in many places around this world including the deep south. This place needs education more than any I have seen. People here are dangerously stupid. This is not watchman related. But how would anyone know. They are to stupid.
Keep in mind most of the dangerously stupid people moved here from other places.
Thank you Rich! Very true!
Will Anchorage be paying for illegal alien child care? I’ve noticed quite a few non-English speaking transplants of late. No doubt they’re on the SOA backlog of 800 (and counting) for SNAP benefits.
After looking at the Prop 14 and the people who are pushing it (mostly organizers from outside Alaska) and the fact that altho they contend it will help local economic growth by taking the child care responsibility from the parent and the local government to “pay for it” in their child care center it demonstrates NOTHING to achieve that economic growth. It is “pie in the sky”. The author is right in assuming that we taxpayers will eventually be saddled with the costs. History repeats itself. And this glaring issue: guess who will then be in charge of indoctrinating our children in the child care center paid for by our tax? The ASD and also in MatSu they are pushing all kinds of sexually explicit and vile books in the schools and libraries. They want ACCESS TO OUR KIDS and this is an EVIL Trojan Horse to get that access. Research the three groups sponsoring this Proposition. They are all social engineering groups and some have been affiliated with the Gates Foundation which has been proven to have people in it involved in sexual abuse of children. Think about it. We DON’T want this no matter what the sales pitch. Vote NO!
In addition to raising our taxes, this early education will be a way to keep open the elementary schools that need to be closed because of dwindling population. Vote no on 14