Gabriella Holt lives up on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, so she doesn’t get to vote on Long Beach’s Proposition I—the $571-million property parcel tax placed on the November ballot by Mayor Bob Foster and the City Council (minus Fifth District rep Gerrie Schipske). But Holt hopes to represent a lot of the people who do get to vote on it, and as she runs against Bonnie Lowenthal for the 54th Assembly District seat, those people are giving her an earful. Anybody got a Q-Tip?

“People are very confused and frustrated,” says Holt, who has attended community meetings in three Long Beach districts—the Third, Fourth and Fifth—during the past 10 days. “They don’t seem to have a good grasp on what it is. They need to be better informed. This should have been more of a process.”

As a Republican, Holt emphasizes that she “isn’t boasting” that she oversaw the passage of three bonds and a parcel tax during her eight years on the school board of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District (PVPUSD). But she recognizes what an accomplishment it was.

“We passed three bonds and a parcel tax in an anti-tax community,” she says. “We were able to do it because we did huge oureach. We wouldn’t even discuss putting it on the ballot until we had some assurance the public was comfortable.”

Holt compares that with what she calls “the rushed approach” of Foster (who unveiled the special tax to fund Long Beach infrastructure on July 10) and the city council (which approved its placement on the ballot on July 20).

“There is concern that the process hasn’t been transparent,” she says, “and that they don’t have real assurance about how their money is going to be spent.”

The PVPUSD sought its parcel tax in 2003 when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger took back some state funding to schools to help California through one of its budget crunches.

“The first thing wasn’t, ‘Let’s go tax, let’s go see what the residents will pay.’ Nuh-uh. No-no-no-no,” says Holt. “It was, ‘Let’s see what we’re doing with our budget first. Let’s see what the need is, really. And then let’s engage the public.’

“So for six months we tore the budget down to zero. We looked at everything. For example, we found we were spending $60,000 a year on bottled water for the central office. Sixty thousand dollars a year? Get rid of it! So we put vending machines in the central office—you might as well bring in a little bit of revenue and get rid of the expense.

“We looked at how we staffed the central office, who was doing what. We had spread sheets upon spread sheets and weekly dialogues and meetings. We had citizens in. We had the unions in. We had key site administrators, we had lead teachers, we had school site parent involvement, we had leadership team involvement, we had student involvement. We looked at it!  And at the end we had everybody’s buy-in because everybody saw how great the need was.

“At the end of six months it was, like, $173 per parcel, with a senior exemption and a five-year sunset—that is, after five years the tax goes away unless you bring it forward for the people to renew.”

And?

“It was easily passed, by almost 80 percent of the voters—79.8 percent, to be precise,” says Holt. “But that’s because it was transparent, everybody knew what the money was specified for. We made that very clear, and we had a citizen oversight committee to make sure that’s the way it happened.”

Tags: 37th assembly district, bonnie lowenthal, Gabriella Holt, Gerrie Schipske, infrastucture parcel tax, Long Beach City Council, Mayor Bob Foster, Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District, Republican