A city at war: Why we can’t all just get along

[daredtowork]

8. I just found out

That the city of Berkeley gets to reassess property taxes every time a property is flipped. So if the property inflates over a million dollar valuation, as many small places have, the taxes are huge! The purchaser would not be able to charge affordable rents even if he or she wanted to!

Furthermore, the property taxes go into the General Fund (discretionary use by Mayor/City) while all the needs of the city have been farmed out to additional "parcel taxes" the citizens vote on each year. Therefore it's in the mayor's interest to keep people flipping properties so he or she can pay off their cronies in the local government establishment. Total corruption is total.