Resident of Los Angeles: Vote for Measure EE on June 4.

 

Measure EE is not “just another tax.” It will bring in $500 million every year in ongoing funds, and is what the teachers and the community fought so hard to get through the strike. LA, don’t leave the job you started on the picket lines unfinished!

Measure EE is desperately needed to give local neighborhood schools the resources to educate children and reduce class sizes. Measure EE will bring the funding we need locally to recruit and retain quality staff and offer our students a well-rounded education, including:

—Lower class sizes

—More arts and music classes

—Cleaner, safer schools

—School nurses and librarians

—Guidance counselors and mental health services for students

—Support for students with disabilities and special needs

Supported by UTLA, Mayor Eric Garcetti, SEIU 99 and others (full list here https://www.yesonee.org), the measure needs 66.7% to pass on June 4. Every vote will count in what is expected to be a low turnout election.

This is common sense. Businesses and corporate landlords will pay more than 70% of this tax. Homeowners would pay only 18%. The owner of a 1,200-square-foot home would pay $208 annually, and the owner of the 73-story US Bank Tower would pay $229,206 annually.

Because the cost will be carried by those who can most afford it, those same corporations are pushing an aggressive, vitriolic NO campaign, led by the LA Chamber of Commerce. Joined by corporate lobbyists and landlords who have funneled more than $1.5 million to get Measure EE to fail. The No campaign’s chief organizers, LA Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Maria Salinas, stated publicly at the February 28, 2019 LAUSD Board Meeting that the Chamber would have supported Measure EE if it were drafted as a regressive tax, meaning that that the owner of a 1 million square foot skyscraper would be assessed the same amount as the owner of a 1,500 square foot house. Measure EE is applied per square foot — so that skyscraper-owners pay more than homeowners.

Decades of chronic underfunding of LAUSD schools have come at a steep price, especially for the students LA schools serve, who are overwhelmingly children of color from low-income families. Schools should not be forced to choose between keeping the library open, funding arts and music classes, or having a school psychologist every day. Even though California is the wealthiest state in the nation, it ranks 44th in the country in per-pupil funding.

The choice is simple: Either LA residents step up and vote yes on Measure EE on Tuesday, June 4, or they sit this out, and students suffer.

Call the Chamber today and tell them to stop the vicious attacks on Measure EE!

Chamber of Commerce 213-580-7500

https://www.yesonee.org