Fake citizens' group promotes new tax

These campaign signs are popping up like mushrooms all over town.

Notice the slick "vote yes on M" sign. The sign says "for safer neighborhoods!" ... If you didn't know better, you'd never guess that was a new tax increase. Keeping with the consultant's philosophy: Talk about the supposed benefits and don't mention anything about costs.

Speaking of costs, check out this in the Manteca Bulletin. The "citizens group" has almost $50,000 to sell us on the new tax. Fortunately, the Bulletin article does tell us that every single "contributor" listed either works for the city and has been promised a big raise if the tax increase passes, or is someone who has been promised "favor" by the city; or is a "developer" who wants to tell us "don't vote for more developer fees, instead raise the sales tax!" And so on. The biggest "contributor" is the police union and the firefighters union. Surprise! Even the one individual named in the article is a high ranking city employee (McLaughlin, Assistant City Manager).

The very idea that this group is trying to pass itself off as some sort of "grass roots citizen group" is appalling. We should demand they resign their city positions just based on this kind of deception. You can argue that it's not against the law for the police and fire unions to pretend to be "your average neighborly citizen" and not reveal the fact that they get paid more if the new tax passes, but it's still despicable behavior for someone who holds themselves out as the standard of honorable actions.