By Larry Weitzman

Without one word of discussion, not one word, the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors voted in the morning session of their Jan. 24 meeting to send a letter of support to substantially raise the taxes of every motorist of El Dorado County.

Larry Weitzman

Late Friday afternoon before the BOS meeting an addendum was placed on the consent calendar, item 38. The addendum said, “Chief Administrative Office recommending the board authorize the chair to sign the attached letters of support to Sen. Jim Beall and Assemblyman Jim Frazier, supporting SB1 and AB1 which would provide approximately $10.1 million in additional funding for street and road maintenance to El Dorado County.”

The use of the consent agenda is to quickly and summarily approve an agenda item without any discussion from BOS members or the public.

SB1 and AB1 will increase the gasoline tax by 12 cents a gallon (a 40 percent increase), diesel fuel by 20 cents and the vehicle registration fee by $38 for conventional and hybrids cars and by $100 for electric cars. Legislative analysts of the bill say it will raise $7 billion and create a new bureaucracy. That new tax averages out to $180 for every man, woman and child within the state. For El Dorado County that amounts to a cost of $21 million or about double the amount of money the CAO says we will receive from this new tax.

If your family has two cars and you drive a total of 40,000 miles a year at 20 mpg the tax will cost that family $240 extra is gas expense and a $76 increase vehicle registration fees. Most drivers with pickups will fare worse.

Instead of cutting meaningful EDC spending, the BOS has decided to support a significant raise of your taxes that everyone will get to directly pay.

Larry Weitzman is a resident of Rescue.