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By Steve Levy
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About this blog: I grew up in Los Angeles and moved to the area in 1963 when I started graduate school at Stanford. Nancy and I were married in 1977 and we lived for nearly 30 years in the Duveneck school area. Our children went to Paly. We moved ...
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About this blog: I grew up in Los Angeles and moved to the area in 1963 when I started graduate school at Stanford. Nancy and I were married in 1977 and we lived for nearly 30 years in the Duveneck school area. Our children went to Paly. We moved downtown in 2006 and enjoy being able to walk to activities. I do not drive and being downtown where I work and close to the CalTrain station and downtown amenities makes my life more independent. I have worked all my life as an economist focusing on the California economy. My work centers around two main activities. The first is helping regional planning agencies such as ABAG understand their long-term growth outlook. I do this for several regional planning agencies in northern, southern and central coast California. My other main activity is studying workforce trends and policy implications both as a professional and as a volunteer member of the NOVA (Silicon Valley) and state workforce boards. The title of the blog is Invest and Innovate and that is what I believe is the imperative for our local area, region, state and nation. That includes investing in people, in infrastructure and in making our communities great places to live and work. I served on the recent Palo Alto Infrastructure Commission. I also believe that our local and state economy benefits from being a welcoming community, which mostly we are a leader in, for people of all religions, sexual preferences and places of birth.
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The Joint Venture Proposition 13 Paper
Uploaded: Feb 11, 2012
Here is the link to the Joint Venture Index of Silicon Valley including the Special Analysis I wrote on Proposition 13.
The purpose of the paper was to explain Proposition 13 from a historical perspective and how it works now after the housing market crash.
There are no recommendations to repeal Proposition 13 in the paper or at the Joint Venture conference yesterday.
There is one fact we all have to deal with.
For 30 years from 1978 to 2008, assessed values and property taxes arose steadily averaging near 8% per year, much faster than inflation or income gains.
That stopped in 2008 as 1) housing prices declined; 2) new construction plummeted and 3) the gains in assessed value from changes in ownership also fell sharply. This is the "new normal" for at least the next several years.
That leaves local governments with two general taxes (property and sales) that will grow more slowly than the economy, even with the recovery accelerates.
This prompted Joint Venture to call for a conversation on local government finance including, but certainly not limited to Proposition 13 reforms.
Local Journalism.
What is it worth to you?
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