Thursday, July 3, 2008 | When Lani Lutar, President/CEO of San Diego County Taxpayers Association, recently meddled in Chula Vista’s Proposition E campaign in a flier titled “Take Our Word For It,” she stated: “Proposition E bypasses the processes of representative government, imposes a costly election process, and delays proposals that do not occur in election years. And, Proposition E encourages developers to bypass public hearings and environmental reports. Going directly to the ballot where they can buy approval with slick, expensive political campaigns. This measure serves as a prime example of ballot box planning, a poor form of public policy.”
Most of this rhetoric was pure poppycock but at the time, and realizing we were in the silly season, I opted to ignore it.
But now that she is piously chastising the Port District for spending public money for political purposes by running an open letter in the Union Tribune, I must ask, did she not know that Mayor Cheryl Cox spent an unauthorized $30,000 of public money on a bogus study to “educate” people about Proposition E? If she didn’t know, she should have. And if she did know she should have protested as loudly then as she is now.
I don’t know who lured her into our local politics but she was ill-informed and ill-advised. In the future when I see a SDCTA position, I will be reminded of this experience and I will not be “taking her word for it.”