California Politics: Madame Senator, this is a morgue

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > California Politics: Madame Senator, this is a morgue

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acksplode: May 17, 2004

My reactionary Sacramento family are like "the state should take over PG&E, it won't be the best but it's better than this. I like my SMUD." So maybe this nationalization/municipalization thing has legs.

# ? Oct 21, 2019 20:35

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 16, 2024 20:30

Complications: Jun 19, 2014

Good news, everyone, we're moving on to round two for power shutoffs.

# ? Oct 21, 2019 20:42

Rodenthar Drothman: May 14, 2013; I think I will continue
watching this twilight world
as long as time flows.

Power Outages Part 2: Candlelit Boogaloo

# ? Oct 21, 2019 20:47

withak: Jan 15, 2003; Fun Shoe

Goodolences to anyone who already replaced the stuff in their freezer after the last blackout.

# ? Oct 21, 2019 20:48

Complications: Jun 19, 2014

Jokes on PG&E, we had an outdoor freezer big enough to throw everything into and the bottom didn't thaw. :shepicide:

# ? Oct 21, 2019 21:36

Happy Thread: Jul 10, 2005; by Fluffdaddy; Plaster Town Cop

Morbus posted:

Rather than try to nationalize PG&E outright, which I reluctantly concede there may not be a broad enough public consensus for, we should take a page out of the GOP book and just saddle them with increasingly punitive ballot measures (which I'm sure can pass) until their failure and nationalization is the only option.

# ? Oct 21, 2019 21:43

Vincent Van Goatse: Nov 8, 2006; Enjoy every sandwich.; Smellrose

Meanwhile, in better news...

https://twitter.com/BrandyZadrozny/status/1186398345029443584

# ? Oct 22, 2019 01:53

Snipee: Mar 27, 2010

Rodenthar Drothman posted:

Power Outages Part 2: Candlelit Boogaloo

# ? Oct 22, 2019 02:16

Rah!: Feb 21, 2006

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

Meanwhile, in better news...

https://twitter.com/BrandyZadrozny/status/1186398345029443584

lmao

# ? Oct 22, 2019 02:52

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

FilthyImp posted:

And here I thought it was Winter Blend time!

Climate change.

# ? Oct 22, 2019 18:29

Sydin: Oct 29, 2011; Another spring commute

Get ready for Power Shutoff 2: Non-Electric Boogaloo

# ? Oct 23, 2019 18:06

fits my needs: Jan 1, 2011; Grimey Drawer

https://twitter.com/OakMorr/status/1187060745646694400?s=20

Huh, lol

# ? Oct 23, 2019 20:35

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

Hollywood Reporter ran a big article about AB5

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/everybody-is-freaking-freelance-writers-scramble-make-sense-new-california-law-1248195

# ? Oct 23, 2019 22:43

LazyArtistry: Oct 11, 2002; Creating disasters and running away from them since 1981.

I see this affects contractors outside of the 'classic' gig economy, but what about other contractors like tech workers?

# ? Oct 23, 2019 22:56

raminasi: Jan 25, 2005; a last drink with no ice

The East Bay Express loving sucks. My favorite terrible article of theirs was the one about how taxi drivers in Berkeley were screwed because the city refused to create taxi stands for them, written when there were at least three in high-pedestrian areas that I knew of just by walking around.

# ? Oct 23, 2019 23:04

GrandpaPants: Feb 13, 2006; Free to roam the heavens in man's noble quest to investigate the weirdness of the universe!

Jaxyon posted:

Hollywood Reporter ran a big article about AB5

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/everybody-is-freaking-freelance-writers-scramble-make-sense-new-california-law-1248195

I volunteer at an arts organization in SF and there's a lot of worry and uncertainty since it seems like AB5 is going to cause a lot of collateral damage to the arts community. Like, in addition to what gentrification and rising cost of living has already done. I still somehow place the blame is on the tech industry for basically existing instead of legislators, but realize both are to blame.

But seriously gently caress Uber.

# ? Oct 23, 2019 23:11

Admiral Ray: May 17, 2014; Proud Musk and Dogecoin fanboy

What if we build an app that will disrupt the political market? Instead of these stodgy politicians that you have to listen to, with my app, Votr, you can swipe right on your favorite politicians and immediately give them a ~~bribe~~ donation!

# ? Oct 24, 2019 00:48

BeAuMaN: Feb 18, 2014; I'M A LEAD FARMER, MOTHERFUCKER!

Admiral Ray posted:

What if we build an app that will disrupt the political market? Instead of these stodgy politicians that you have to listen to, with my app, Votr, you can swipe right on your favorite politicians and immediately give them a ~~bribe~~ donation!

Does swipe left immediately send them to a guillotine? You might have a business model there.

# ? Oct 24, 2019 00:51

Dr. Fraiser Chain: May 18, 2004; Redlining my shit posting machine

A bunch of apps are disrupting politics. Facebook, Reddit, ect

# ? Oct 24, 2019 00:54

Craptacular!: Jul 9, 2001; Fuck the DH

Admiral Ray posted:

What if we build an app that will disrupt the political market? Instead of these stodgy politicians that you have to listen to, with my app, Votr, you can swipe right on your favorite politicians and immediately give them a ~~bribe~~ donation!

Anything that makes the political system more about hoarding likes and favorites than dollars is probably a good thing.

That kind of is what voting is, and it's the one last institution where money doesn't talk.

# ? Oct 24, 2019 01:03

Doc Hawkins: Jun 15, 2010; Dashing? But I'm not even moving!

https://twitter.com/DSAEastBay/status/1187196549266210816

# ? Oct 24, 2019 03:45

WAR CRIME GIGOLO: Oct 3, 2012; The Hague
tryna get me
for these glutes

Doc Hawkins posted:

https://twitter.com/DSAEastBay/status/1187196549266210816

Backstory?

# ? Oct 24, 2019 04:15

Doc Hawkins: Jun 15, 2010; Dashing? But I'm not even moving!

WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:

Backstory?

Some people are working their way through the charter school shock doctrine school-to-prison playbook, while some other people are working in the opposite direction.

# ? Oct 24, 2019 04:21

Cup Runneth Over: Aug 8, 2009; She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate

Already deleted, lol

# ? Oct 24, 2019 04:34

Happy Thread: Jul 10, 2005; by Fluffdaddy; Plaster Town Cop

Don't know why it got taken down, hopefully not by moderation, but here are a couple of their tweets about the same thing?

https://twitter.com/DSAEastBay/status/1187169191909982208

https://twitter.com/DSAEastBay/status/1187168684575358976

# ? Oct 24, 2019 04:39

The Wiggly Wizard: Aug 21, 2008

It just seems to me that a billionaire can come in an get whatever he wants and run roughshod over average millionaires like myself

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/10/08/couple-who-sold-home-to-mark-zuckerberg-gets-a-property-tax-surprise/

quote:

Couple that sold their home to Mark Zuckerberg for $14 million gets a property tax surprise
The Shulmans thought their move from Palo Alto to Atherton would be covered by Prop 90

Ron and Ellen Shulman were perfectly happy in their Palo Alto home of nearly 20 years. But when a company controlled by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said it would pay $14 million for the property, the offer was too good to pass up.

It was a classic Silicon Valley real estate dream come true. They had paid a fraction of that for the house.

So, the Shulmans packed up and headed for tony Atherton, eventually settling into a home assessed at just under $7 million. The couple planned to use a state law that allows residents over age 55 to transfer their property taxes, in this case from the Palo Alto home to the new house in Atherton, without increasing their tax payment.

Because they had purchased the Palo Alto house for little more than $1 million in 1995, what�s known as the base year value had risen to just $1.7 million, a huge figure in most real estate markets, but relatively modest on the Peninsula. They paid less than $20,000 a year in property taxes. The state law, Prop. 90, allows people who move from one of a few participating counties to another to keep their old property tax as long as their new home is of equal or lesser value than their old residence.

But based on an assessment of their Palo Alto home, the Shulmans� request was denied. Their property taxes rose to around $80,000, more than most Americans make in a year.

Now, they�ve spent years embroiled in a bitter and costly multi-county tax dispute that has resulted in a lawsuit in Santa Clara County Superior Court over how much a property is really worth and who gets to decide.

�It�s very frustrating and troubling,� said Ron Shulman, a patent trial lawyer, adding that the couple had deliberately kept their new home within what they thought would be the confines of Prop. 90 to avoid incurring extra tax costs. �We seem to have done everything by the book the way it should be done.�

Their story began in 2013, when the Shulmans sold their home on Hamilton Avenue in Santa Clara County to RFBPO, a Zuckerberg-owned LLC. The Zuckerbergs bought up four properties, including the Shulman�s, around their Palo Alto home after learning that a developer planned to build a home next door that would be tall enough to see into the Facebook CEO�s master bedroom.

The Shulmans purchased property in Atherton in San Mateo County and built a new home on it by 2015, within the two-year time frame Prop. 90 requires. San Mateo County assessed the new property at about $6.8 million. But when the couple applied for Prop. 90 approval in San Mateo County, they were denied. That�s because Santa Clara County had assessed the value of their old residence at just $4.9 million, a fraction of the sales price. And that put their new place well above the required threshold allowed for a property tax transfer � 110 percent of the old home�s assessed value.

With the denial of the transfer, the Shulman�s say their property taxes rose by about $60,000.

Shocked at what they and their attorneys characterize as the �arbitrarily low assessment of the original residence�s value,� the Shulmans asked San Mateo County, where they now pay property taxes, to review the issue. But San Mateo County demurred, saying it couldn�t adjust a valuation from another county.

�We don�t really know why we�re part of this lawsuit,� said San Mateo Deputy County Counsel Rebecca Archer.

But according to David Ginsborg, deputy assessor for Santa Clara County, the $4.9 million assessment is fair.

�Just because there�s a transaction,� Ginsborg said, �a transaction doesn�t determine the market.�

When the Shulmans tried to go to Santa Clara County to review the assessment documents, they were denied access since they no longer owned the property. And when the pair asked RFBPO to give them access to the documents, the company declined. An attorney representing RFBPO declined to comment. But if the county were to reassess the property at a higher value, the Zuckerbergs could face higher taxes.

Feeling stuck, the couple filed an appeal in San Mateo County. The appeals board again said the county couldn�t do anything and pointed them toward Santa Clara County. But the Shulmans have argued that they can�t file an appeal there because the appeals process is for people who own or pay taxes on a property in the county. They no longer do either.

�This is truly living life between a rock and a hard place,� reads the Shulman�s suit against the two counties and the LLC.

The Shulmans say they�ve been denied due process and want the court to ask Santa Clara County to revalue the property. The $14 million sales price on their Palo Alto home, they said, is what the market supported.

�Everybody�s pointing a finger at everybody else,� Shulman said. �We feel like we�re in a bureaucratic nightmare.�

The assessor�s office, Ginsborg said, is required to look at everything from location and square footage to amenities and home quality and ask, essentially, �What would a normal buyer pay for this home?�

But the Shulmans and their legal team say the county didn�t fully take into account the roughly $3 million complete remodel of the Palo Alto house they did a few years before they sold it, or the fact that other homes in the neighborhood had also sold for more than $10 million. And, they said, an independent appraisal they requested said the property was worth about $6.7 million, within the 110 percent value of their new home allowed under Prop 90. So, they argued, even if the county declined to assess the property at $14 million, it should have been much more than $4.9 million.

If the county used the $14 million figure, the property would funnel well over $100,000 toward Santa Clara County.

�The Santa Clara County school system is going wanting for $100,000 every year and an elderly couple is being surcharged more than $50,000 every year as a result of the county�s arbitrary assessments,� said Paul Barulich, an attorney representing the Shulmans, who are both in their mid-60s.

Ginsborg, who said he is friends with the Shulman�s son, pushed back at that notion.

�The public wants us to adhere to an independent standard so that when it�s their turn, they know they�re getting a fair shake,� Ginsborg said.

Almost a decade ago, he noted, Israeli-Russian tycoon Yuri Milner broke records when he paid an eye-popping $100 million for a Los Altos Hills home. But the assessor�s office valued the home at just half that, $50 million, analyzing comparable properties as far away as Los Angeles to arrive at a value.

Patricia Cain, a tax law professor at Santa Clara University who is not involved in the case, said the county�s appraisal of the Shulman�s old property �seems outrageous to me�That just doesn�t happen in the real world.�

The parties in the suit are expected to meet later this fall to discuss the case.

Shulman, who plans to retire within the next couple of years, wants what has become a time-consuming headache resolved.

�Had I known,� he said, �we never would�ve done this.�

dave-chappelle-gently caress-em.gif

The Wiggly Wizard fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Oct 24, 2019

# ? Oct 24, 2019 21:30

The Wiggly Wizard: Aug 21, 2008

Shoot these people out of a cannon into the estuary and bulldoze their former and current homes to make way for high speed rail and BART

# ? Oct 24, 2019 21:41

Dr. Fraiser Chain: May 18, 2004; Redlining my shit posting machine

Never would have done what? Sold your house for 10 million above appraisal to skip 50k a year in property tax?

# ? Oct 24, 2019 21:44

Megaman's Jockstrap: Jul 16, 2000; What a horrible thread to have a post.

Oh boo hoo, I can't retire on....13 million in profit from a real estate sale?

I fuckin' flipped houses and I would kill for that kind of catch. I would retire immediately!!!!

# ? Oct 24, 2019 21:47

Cup Runneth Over: Aug 8, 2009; She said life's
Too short to worry
Life's too long to wait
It's too short
Not to love everybody
Life's too long to hate

Here ya go

# ? Oct 24, 2019 21:50

HelloSailorSign: Jan 27, 2011

Holy loving poo poo I'm looking at Atherton properties on Zillow.

It's just.

You can look on satellite pictures and tell what's the Atherton city limits because the lots are so large with so many trees and grass lawns that the area looks green in compared to neighboring Redwood City (which is still also probably stupidly pricey but houses are packed next to each other).

# ? Oct 24, 2019 21:51

Leperflesh: May 17, 2007

I have very little sympathy for that couple, but it is bullshit that there's an appeal process for the appraisal of a house that is sold, but they can't access that appeal process because they don't live in the house they sold. That's going to bite a lot of other people on the rear end too, and property appraisal is itself often a kind of shady practice. Comps matter, but most appraisals don't even bother to go inside the house, so they can totally ignore poo poo that matters a lot like whether the kitchen is a dump or a fresh remodel.

What I'd like to see is the courts telling the county that they have to let the former owner of a property appeal its appraisal, but then after their appeal the appraisal still comes in low enough that those people have to keep paying tax; and of course, obviously, prop 90 is poo poo and should be repealed. Old rich people don't deserve special lower property taxes.

# ? Oct 24, 2019 22:02

VideoGameVet: May 14, 2005; It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

HelloSailorSign posted:

Holy loving poo poo I'm looking at Atherton properties on Zillow.

It's just.

You can look on satellite pictures and tell what's the Atherton city limits because the lots are so large with so many trees and grass lawns that the area looks green in compared to neighboring Redwood City (which is still also probably stupidly pricey but houses are packed next to each other).

When I was living in Palo Alto ('88-'92) Atherton was crazy expensive even back then.

# ? Oct 24, 2019 22:06

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

lol 7br 13 baths, is this about variety in making GBS threads or what

# ? Oct 24, 2019 22:26

Wicked Them Beats: Apr 1, 2007; Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.

Of course the article doesn't tell us what the annual income of this poor elderly couple who did a $3 million dollar remodel of their house is. Gonna guess the property tax they're trying to dodge is actually a drop in the bucket or they're upset because the seven expensive vacations they take a year might have to get pared back to four or five.

# ? Oct 24, 2019 22:53

The Wiggly Wizard: Aug 21, 2008

Wicked Them Beats posted:

Of course the article doesn't tell us what the annual income of this poor elderly couple who did a $3 million dollar remodel of their house is. Gonna guess the property tax they're trying to dodge is actually a drop in the bucket or they're upset because the seven expensive vacations they take a year might have to get pared back to four or five.

Also the fact that they've been fighting legal battles with two counties and one Fuckerberg Corp for years

One is a tech patent law firm partner and the other is a NYC fashion debutante/consultant. I wonder if they'll land on their feet!

# ? Oct 24, 2019 23:07

RevKrule: Jul 9, 2001; Thrilling the forums since 2001

https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/status/1187507378037510144

How have we not nationalized them at this point???? Why have we spent so much time bending over backwards for this poo poo?

# ? Oct 25, 2019 00:22