City of Inglewood, CA 2021 City Events, 20 Oct 2021

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From YouTube: District 1 Measure H and I Meeting

Description

Councilman George Dotson hosts a Measure H and I informational meeting. A virtual meeting held on 10/20/2021 from Inglewood City Hall with participants Mayor James Butts, Moderator Gwendolyn Goodman and Michelle Maravich Measure H & I Consultant.

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Good evening.

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This is this meeting is an informational meeting for measure h and measure. I I'm so glad you are able to join us this evening.

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I can't wait until we can have these gatherings in person again on our agenda tonight.

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We will have experts an expert, our one and only mayor butts, and he is an expert at this particular measure and uh measure h and measure. I we will hear.

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We will be here to talk to you about h and I, and I will be here as well now to get things started.

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I would like to introduce the captain of the inglewood team, the leader of the fair city of englewood and the best mayor in this country. James t butts jr.

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Thank you, councilman dawson. That's a lot to live up to um good evening. Everybody glad that we were able to spend this time together.

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I I think the first thing that we should establish so that everybody's clear on this, the measures refer to inh they've, always existed as tax or documentary fee for real estate transaction forever, and so what happens with measure h? It increases the hotel tax by one and a half percent and measure. I increases the documentary transfer fee that you see every time. You've ever bought a property in inglewood from 55 cents per thousand to 1.75 percent per thousand for any property that sells for more than 1.1 million dollars. Let me say that again.

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This has nothing to do with your property taxes.

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It has nothing to do with you transferring your property to your children, no matter what the value comes to this documentary transfer fee is you'll, see it on every escrow instruction will impact purchases right now that are apartment, buildings, commercial buildings or residential properties that sell for more than 1.1 million.

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If you give your property to your children, there's no documented transfer free tax, and so that's something we want to make clear that.

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The only way that your property taxes can increase would be is if your property appreciates in value and then only when the assessor comes and makes a look and says that oh, this property has appreciated in value and the most that it can go up in a given year by the assessor is two percent in a given year, and that has nothing to do with the city.

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Now people might say well. Why do we need to do this?

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All the other cities around us charge four dollars and fifty cents per thousand, and they do that for a reason, because when things commerce increases activity increases entertainment increases in cities, you have to spend more money. I've made the analogy to the first homework apartment that you had, the utilities cost less.

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It was cheaper to put a roof on.

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You probably used to cut the grass yourself and when you got the bigger property, you got a gardener. The reality is, is things grow and things have definitely grown in the city of inglewood. We have three professional sports teams. Now the forum's back open, we're gonna, have a super bowl in february 2022 nz2a championship bowl game in 2023, we'll host wrestlemania in 2024, the intuit dome will open and the clippers will pay their play their first game here in inglewood.

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In 2028 the summer olympic games be held here in englewood in 2026 we're a finalist for a fifa world cup.

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We're going to have to increase the level of services to accommodate all these things that are happening and benefiting our residents. How have our residents benefited in 2010 2011? Our unemployment rate was 17 and a half percent won the highest unemployment rates in the country.

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For all these projects, I'm insisted upon a 30 to 35 percent local higher goal so that we achieve equity for our residents, and so what's happened.

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Over the last seven years, we've gone down to a 4.7 percent unemployment rate pre-pandemic after the pandemic it rose again, but it rose everywhere that 4.7 percent is the lowest unemployment rate for a minority majority city in the country.

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Because of our focus on equity, we have a three percent cap on rents in englewood, the lowest cap in the south bay.

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However, as I said before, there's a lot of investment coming to englewood, a lot of high value properties being sold and those people, companies that invest in the city should pay a commensurate rate. That's paid in other cities. Now some people say, but you know that comes out of my escrow.

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The reality is this: you can negotiate it that that fee is paid by the buyer of the property and it only kicks in for a property that sells for more than 1.1 million dollars. So here's the bottom line. How does it affect me and my children, one? It doesn't raise your property taxes, no matter what anybody tells you. It has nothing to do with your property taxes, two, if getting an appreciation of seven hundred, eight hundred thousand nine hundred thousand- and you still don't want to pay the documentary transfer tax that you pay right.

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Now that you have the option to negotiate the buyer just to pay, you can do that and it won't affect you at all. So with that we'd like to turn it over to any questions.

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Again, we're open for questions star and the nine key will allow you to raise your hand. Thank you. I'm seeing a hand at the moment.

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My question is: I understand that this tax is going for infrastructure and all those things. Why can't it be a special fund? Just for this, this measures measure ai. Why can't these funds go into a special fund designated only for the uh intended purposes? Why does it have to go into the general fund.

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That that is just such an excellent question and and I'll tell you exactly why that is because one when you put together a budget for.

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Year, you make an estimate of what you're going to receive in revenues and then what you're going to have to expand in expenditures. There are some years that you have infrastructure needs that have to be met. For instance, we have to put a new roof on the um the service center at the city yard.

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We have to completely redo the police locker room at a cost of about 4.6 million. We have delayed infrastructure for the main library, that's going to cost in excess of 9 million.

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We have to redo the morningside park, library that has been closed for decades at a cost of around four four and a half million, and so what you don't do with unrestricted revenues is pigeonhole them so that you can be flexible.

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Just as when you run your household.

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You don't say: oh, I can only spend uh this much money on house repairs because that'll be the year that you have a leak and you have to replace your roof.

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So it is in case that you can't it's the case that it's not wise and the reason that you elect a mayor council people hire department heads is to make good decisions.

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So the barometer of good government is not how restricted the decision makers are in the range of decisions they can make for the residents, but in the responsibility that they wield when they make those decisions.

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We don't have any other questions with hands raised, but we do have a couple of written questions.

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The first written question is: what is the effective start date if this passes?

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So so so just like, when you have an election so say you elect a council person or a mayor, they don't take their term of office at the date of the election. There's a time of that they're inaugurated and for this these measures they'll take effect the first of next year.

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My question is hello, am I we can hear you.

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Just fine, we can hear you just fine, okay,.

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My question is: um why was the bar on measure h established at 1.1 million, where a lot of single-family homes and duplexes are basically rubbing up on that cap, as it is right now.

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Okay, sir, that was picked um because actually less than two percent of the transactions in the city that occur are above 1.1 million and also the reality is that you had to pick some point somewhere and if, after making seven eight hundred thousand.

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In appreciation on a sale, if you didn't give it to a family member, where there was no documented transfer tax, you could still if it was single-family residents, it was any kind of residence. If it was a commercial property, you could write into the escrow instructions, just as you negotiate the broker's fee that the buyer would pay either the increase or the to pay. The entire documented transfer tax.

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So the re you could you can why this to death, but the reality is, is that less than two percent of the properties, the turnover in the city right now will be affected by this, and even if one of them was a single-family residence.

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Even if that was the case, you could negotiate that the buyer paid that at the close of escrow.

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Oh well, first of all, every city has a mixture of um city employees, services that are provided by city, employees and services that are done by private contractors or consultants and there's a reason for that, because one some projects require equipment and expertise that the city does not have and.

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Sometimes you realize that you have a city staff that is too large in certain areas, and so what cities have done over the years with the explosion and pension costs and benefit costs, is that they've sought a balance, a balance between in-house employees and services that were outsourced and those decisions are made based upon the quality of work, to be done, how much cheaper it is to have certain things done, outsourced so that cities can survive and that's how those decisions are made and, as I said earlier, this is why you hire department heads.

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This is why you elect council people, because they're supposed to make wise, prudent decisions and the balance of workforce is another one.

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Okay, well anyway, we wanna. We want to thank everybody for your time and attention again. I I believe the main thing that people want to understand, and I really want you to take this away.

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This is not a property tax increase; it will never be a property and contraction increase. This is a documentary transfer fee that if you looked at the paperwork in escrow, when you bought your house, it was paid when you bought your house.

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The only thing that changes is that after property sells for more than 1.1 million, that fee goes up from 55 cents to 1.75 percent. That's it! You still have the ability, as you always have, to negotiate that it's paid by the buyer at the close of escrow.

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It does not raise your property taxes. I can't say that enough. It has nothing to do with your property taxes.

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What we have right now is 55 cents per thousand la is 4.50 cents per thousand culver city, 450 per thousand santa monica beverly hills the same, we're we're less than one-fifth of what what they uh charge for this um documentary transfer fee.

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So I want to thank you on behalf of myself and councilman dotson, and I hope that you'll be able to take this information, because you know what voting is a sacred right. We want you to vote, but we want you to understand what you're voting on.

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We don't want you to vote based upon rumors and what your neighbor thinks that he heard from the guy around the corner. We want to tell you the facts, and the fact of the matter is this: that the city of englewood has to prepare itself for the future. I've been the mayor going on 12 years.

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I work for less than 50 of what I've made in my prior employment and less than a third of what I could make working somewhere else, I'm here, because I love the city. I came back to the city after being gone for 20 years in the city of santa monica, in the city of los angeles, and the only reason I'm here is to build the angle to the future and to have that city be sustainable economically to make the right decisions now so that we're prepared to enjoy this bright future.

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As I said before, we have all these things coming. We have three professional sports teams.

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What we've done in the last seven years has only been replicated in three cities in this country and they're mega cities, new york, los angeles and san francisco, but what we did in seven years took them a generation took them a generation.

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So we have to prepare ourselves for the generation that we're in right.

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So, thank you very much, um councilman dawson. Thank you for inviting me.

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um I want to thank you mayor for being here. I understand that you are very busy and to take the time out to come and help me with this meeting. I will never be able to thank you enough, but I want the audience to know that.

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uh I hope that you were listening because I've gotten so many questions about this measure. I the mirror, explained it so very well, and I hope that you will now uh know what you're voting for uh voting whatever.

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So uh with that um I'm gonna say thanks for joining us and uh if you have any other questions that we did not answer tonight, you can call city hall and get my office, and I will answer your question with that. Thank you very much.

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Goodnight everybody.

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