Eureka Utility Tax Fight Continues

Anybody know who this Dan Barrett guy is? The Eureka Reporter ran the second of their point/ counterpoint series on the continuance of Eureka's Utility Tax today. I can't help but think Mr. Barrett, favoring the continuance of the tax, must be a fairly passionate left- winger if he takes the time to write an argument for the tax.

Howard Rein once again takes the NO side on the issue, him being a good choice as he's been involved with the issue for some time.

I don't remember if it's been brought up in either of the last two back and forths over this that Eureka's Finance Committee, or whatever it's called, has proposed extending the utility tax to cover even more utilities. I'll have to check and see if that's part of this extension that will be on the ballot, or a different issue altogether.

Regardless, I'm opposed to both the extension itself and applying it to other utilities.
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As an aside, if you haven't done so yet, take a look at your phone bill sometime and check all the taxes and fees added to your phone bill. Local utility taxes are just one of them. Some of the fees are set fees, not percentages of your bill.

Some years ago I had some long distance plan other than Pacbell's. I forget the name of the outfit. The only reason I signed up for it was an LPer down south got a percentage from my charges since she got me to sign up for the plan. She, in turn, donated those earnings to the Libertarian Party of California.

I got to looking at the bill once and realized that, even with only about fifty cents (or less) of long distance charges in a given month, my bill would be two to two and half bucks, the extra couple bucks being all the taxes and fees levied on the account. Most were just set fees. I figured why have an extra account with the extra taxes and fees so I closed that account and went back to Pacbell or SBC, whichever it was back when that happened.

If you have one of those separate long distance accounts, check it out. You may want to do the same.